


All I Know Are Sad Songs

by ayyyy (RosaAquafire)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Age Difference, Alpha Timeline, Canon Compliant, Childhood Trauma, Dubious Consent, Ectobiological Incest, End of the World, Foster Care, If you have especially sensitive triggers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, PLEASE skip this one, Power Imbalance, Substance Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Underage Drinking, dave is in a really bad place okay, please heed warnings, starts dark gets less dark, the dave/rose stuff is background
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:48:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 36
Words: 122,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6805204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosaAquafire/pseuds/ayyyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.</p>
<p>Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Took a Pill in Ibiza

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed tag warnings. This fic goes to some pretty triggery areas. It'll get better but this first chapter is a doozy.
> 
> I've had this fic kicking around in my head for a while now. It's partly inspired by the absolutely wonderful AlphaDave/Reincarkat fics here on AO3, such as sburbanite's [Love in the time of juggalos](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4992640/chapters/11469292), Volo's [Be My Boyfriend (I'll Pay You)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2544632/chapters/5657189) and Asuka Kureru's [30th Century Night](http://archiveofourown.org/works/519122). It all kicked into high gear with the release of the song [Took a Pill in Ibiza](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foE1mO2yM04) by Mike Posner and SEEB, which this fic takes its title(s) from and is heavily inspired by.

I'm sitting in a bathroom stall, pants around my ankles, and I'm staring down at a postage stamp that could totally fucking blow my mind.

The entire bathroom is fucking vibrating. I can hear the bass in my bones, rocking my toilet, making my brain rattle around in my skull. In the stall next to me, some skirt is begging for dick in Catalan. I can barely understand her, but she seems like she's having a pretty good time. She's having a better time than me.

I close my eyes. Roll my head back on my shoulders. I find the line of the bass thrumming through the walls, rocking the club down to its foundations. Sometimes I can get lost in music, but I can't feel much of anything right now. I could blame the music. The DJ's an upstart. People like him because his beats are slick, but there's no soul in his music. Big bass drops, no substance.

The problem isn't the music. The problem is me.

" _Em fumi enlaire!_ " my neighbour cries. I know enough actual Catalan to think she's saying 'I'm smoke in the air.' I've watched enough porn from my hotel room to know that it's slang. Her voice has a wild joy to it that even fat bass drops and good sex can't get you. Especially not here, in a place like this. Where nobody is happy.

I know where she found it. I could find it, too.

I toy with the postage stamp as the music is building to some fever pitch out on the floor. Some fan had slipped it to me. Winked. Told me it was the best high he had on offer. Can't even get arrested for this shit, he'd said. Some genius in a lab cooked it up a week ago. There aren't even any laws for this stuff, yet. Not that anyone gets arrested for designer drugs on beachside Ibiza, the place where you go to get venereal diseases, hollow regret, and the comforting sense that you at least tried to forget your fucking misery.

"Here's to forgetting my fucking misery," I murmur. The couple beside me orgasm loudly, the bass drops hard, and I tuck the postage stamp under my tongue.

It takes about twenty seconds to hit.

My veins catch on fire and my heart starts thumping and after that it gets real foggy, but that's good. I'm whirling around on the dance floor and there are lights strobing around me. I think that maybe I've lost my shades somewhere but it doesn't seem to matter, because there's a topless woman clinging to me and we're screaming as yet another bassline drops. I think I'm doing a line of coke from between her tits, and she's got fingers entwined in my hair. Someone is calling my name while I fuck her up against a wall. I think we're still on the dance floor, because there are vivid rainbows of lights flashing around my head, and people are cheering and whooping. All the noise and sound and colour collides in my head. She feels so good. I can't come. I can't fucking come no matter how hard I go.

Someone pulls me off her. The blow feels like a splash of cold water in my face and I go down laughing. Some swarthy dude is in my face, screaming his lungs out, and just I can't stop laughing. "Ladies love me," I keep saying. "Ladies love me, bro, can't help it. Ladies love me!" The guy is weeping and it's funny, it's really funny. The guy needs to lighten up. Yeah, he's lost her, so what. So what? It's not my fault. What matters? Nothing matters.

We're all alone in the end.

Someone's shining a flashlight in my face and I throw up an arm, cause the light pierces right into my fucking cerebral cortex. Someone says my name, and I flash a grin and a finger-pistol. "You got him," I say, a routine I know by heart, and maybe someone sighs.

I'm face-first in the sand and the bass fades to a faint thudding boom as doors slam closed behind me. I roll on my back. The moon is full up above and I'm laughing, still laughing. Why not? Laughing is a whole lot less fucking pathetic than crying. Why cry? Doesn't change shit.

At this point, I think time gets away from me. Things fade in and out. The moon is in one place, and then I blink, and it's moved. I stare at it and it starts melting. Molten platinum turns to shimmering white streamers as it floats down to me, and I reach up to try and gather the gossamer threads between my fingers, except that when they touch me, they burn like hell and I might be screaming, at this point. I'm honestly not sure.

I blink and the pain is gone and the moon's moved again. My head is starting to hurt. I slowly, painfully sit up. I can feel my phone buzzing in my pocket.

When I have the presence of mind to think: _holy fuck, I can't believe nobody stole my fucking phone,_ I know that I'm starting to sobering up.

I look toward the door of the club. I bet I can get another of those postage stamps if I go inside. If the guy is still there, that is. I'm not sure how much time has passed. Probably a lot. It's got to be three in the morning. Maybe later. (Earlier?) I press a hand to my temple. I don't want to sober up. Even if there aren't more postage stamps in there, there's gotta be some other designer drug. Or we could go old school. Score some molly. LSD. Hell, just some retiree in a midlife crisis selling his fucking ephedrine.

My phone is buzzing again. I think that it might be my producer, so I check it. My stomach twists and I hate everything, I hate myself, I hate this world, and I hate Rose. I shove the phone back in my pocket. Head back into the club, into the roaring wild jungle of gyrating bodies, strobing lights, and people who love me even though they just threw me out into the sand a few hours ago. That's what my life is.

I find postage stamp guy easy enough. First was a favour; he makes me pay for this one. I hand him a wad of Benjamins and slam that thing under my tongue. No bullshit bathroom self-reflection, this time. I ask him if it's safe to take two. He laughs, says hell no. Sells me a second anyway. 

**

After a whole lot of stuff I don't remember at all -- like, not even a little, not even those flashes of light or sound that can come to you after a bad trip -- I find myself somewhere totally different. I'm at the boardwalk. I'm sitting high up on a railing, no idea how I got up here, and it's nighttime, and I'm not sure, but I think it might not be the same day. I think I may have gone so deep down postage stamp lane that I lost an entire day.

I'm okay with this. A day is chump change. I'm almost grateful.

I'm still high, and I know it, but after you're high enough for long enough, even a slightly lower high starts to feel like sobriety. I'm not sure how I got here, but I know that the water is deep and black and right beneath me.

Out of curiosity, I try to touch my nose and poke myself in the eye. Okay, cool. I have no coordination. So if I fall in, I'll probably drown.

I've had worse thoughts.

I could probably put my phone against my dick and get off, it's buzzing so fucking insistently. I fumble for it. Almost drop it into the Mediterranean. I laugh at that. Who cares? Who cares. I have 30 voicemails, 60 missed calls, and one message.

TT: Dave, god damn you, we need to talk. Call me, _please_.  


The thought of hearing her voice fills me with a moment of hope before I remember what happened, and then I almost do drop the phone off into the sea. I stare down at her message. I'm not calling her. I won't, I fucking refuse. She'll hear I'm high, she'll think less of me, and it's fucked up that I care so much about that. I do, though. Her thinking that I'm not a total piece of shit is the only thing in the world I've got.

TG: hey  


My thumb hovers over send. I shouldn't. Fuck knows, Rose deserves a lot better than my shit. Rose would be better off without me. And I'd be better off without me, too. The charm of my presence has hella worn off. I look down into the black water. Moonlight reflects back.

Then I shake my head and hit send.

Immediately, my phone rings. I just kind of hold it while it vibrates, making my hand kind of numb. My hand was already kind of numb. I realize that I'm wearing eurotrash raver clothes, and my nice lime green three piece suit is probably... somewhere. Who cares.

My ringtone finally stops. I really hate it, I decide. It's the theme song from my second movie, which I was really proud of, but now all I can think is how fucking clever I thought I was when I made it, when I made _all_ of them, and I hate it.

TT: Answer me, Dave.  
TG: nah  
TT: Where the hell are you? I called your hotel in Barcelona and they said you weren't there.  
TG: checked out early  
TT: They said you never checked in.  
TG: real early  


I can almost hear her growl in frustration. See the way her black-painted fingernails would glide through her hair, knotting as she takes a second to breathe and gather herself. I know Rose inside out, and I miss her. I miss...

I miss...

I miss something so intangible I'm not even sure what it is. A simpler time. A better me. A spark of life.

Hope.

That sounds closest.

TT: Do I even want to know where you are? What you've been doing? Did you ever even touch down in Spain?  
TT: You never showed up for the convention, no one knows where you are.  
TT: Foreign paparazzi are shooting pics of every tall white guy in the Mediterranean and saying it's you.  
TT: Some tabloids are buying the photos and running them. They're trying to decide which of them are actually false trails laid by you and if there's one of your stupid alternate reality games embedded into the whole thing.  
TT: They're ignoring that they're all just eurotrash ripping off your style and getting credit for it!

She's trying to bait me. Look at these posers ripping off your brand. Look at corporate America, trying to play a game when you took your football and went home. I get what she's doing. I just... don't have it in me to play.

TG: rose look can we just stop  
TT: ... stop what?  
TG: yeah no okay let's hella not do that  
TG: never once in your life have you ever been ignorant of a single thing  
TG: hell even when you dont know shit about dick you pretend that you do  
TG: haha you dont know shit about dick get it  
TT: Dave...  
TT: If this is about what happened, well, I want to talk about it. You deserve some explanations. And some apologies.  
TT: But I don't want to do all of that over text message. Can't you call me?  
TG: nah  
TT: Stop shutting me out.  
TG: nah  
TT: Dave, you're better than this!  


I feel something crack right about now. For just a second, I think that maybe I'm mad at her, but I'm really not and I know it. It's not her fucking fault. This has been happening in slow motion for a long, long time, and if the events of the past few days have sent me over the edge, what does that matter? It was always going to happen. There's something just wrong with me, some fundamental fucking flaw, and if Rose was part of what struck that shit at the wrong angle and made me go all to pieces, how is that her fault?

It's not her fault. It's not _anything's_ fault, not even the obvious. It's me. It's all just me.

TG: im not better than shit  
TG: you know what I am rose  
TG: im ironic hipster trash  
TG: ive made a career out of monetizing the emperors fucking new clothes  
TG: draping them all over his imperial majestys paunch  
TG: watching everybody applaud my genius tailoring  
TG: jokes on you assholes  
TG: dude was naked all along  
TG: hella jeff is nothing but the imperial shlong  
TG: wow i sure am glad i built this amazing career and have money and hotties and mansions and cars and clothes and none of it fucking matters because the world is going to end and what does it even matter?  
TG: no one is going to care that im gone  
TG: nothing matters  
TG: fucking nothing matters rose  
TG: especially not me  
TG: i love you ok  
TG: be good  
TG: find someone  
TG: you always were better at living than i was  
  


I see a flash of purple as Rose starts frantically replying to me. I know that she's realized what's happening, but she's back in her comfy parlour in New England and I'm high in Ibiza. She doesn't get a chance to make her appeal before my phone hits the waves and sinks beneath. In less than a second, its glow is gone. I can't tell if it broke that fast, or if it shot for the bottom like a rock.

I stand up.

There's a certain clarity in this moment, and I gaze down at the water and feel something that might be the beginnings of peace. I don't believe in the afterlife. I used to -- growing up in Texas, yo -- but Rose's existential nightmare beat it out of me a long, long time ago. I don't mind. The point is to make everything just stop, right? The lack of heaven or hell feels like a blessing.

I balance on the wall, unsteady. If I fall backwards, I'll crack my skull, probably. Oh well.

I take a breath.

"Hey! Hey, what the fuck!?"

I jump half out of my skin, the voice piercing through the fugue of my high, and that's when I fall backwards.

Inevitable as fuck -- I'd just predicted it -- but there's still a moment of utter panic as I pinwheel my arms and then fall backwards. I'm not scared that I'll die, but I can't help but start laughing as I realize what I'm thinking -- that it's going to make a fucking ugly headline when they snap pics of me with my brains spilling out and _that's_ my legacy plastered on the headlines. Drowning is so much more elegant.

I don't die. I don't die, because someone lurches into position and catches me before I hit the boardwalk.

I realize that my eyes are squeezed shut. I was scared to die, after all, flinching away from it like a pussy. It feels like a real loss and I kind of hate myself for that, I do. There are elbows hooked under my armpits. "Senor!" my savior is saying. I can't tell if it's Catalan or Spanish. The accent isn't right for either. "You okay? Fuck. Do I need to call la policia?" It's something middle eastern-ish. I can't place it.

I force myself to open my eyes, and for a second, I'm sure my little postage stamp has come back with a vengeance, because my rescuer is a fucking monster. It's got thick, rough looking grey skin and glowing, angry yellow sclera. Baleful red pupils peer down at me from over a mouthful of sharp looking teeth. The sight is terrifying and alien and familiar and comforting and I close my eyes with a squeak before that face can melt like the moon.

"Fucking wonderful, just what I -- look, I don't even fucking know if you speak english, but if I call police, I think we're both going to be in a lot of trouble, asshole. You're clearly fucked up and I've been busted once this month already on this corner. Do you want me calling them?"

My cash can grease foreign police on party island easy, but the monster is definitely not so lucky. My fogged brain pieces together the words. It's a hooker. The monster is a fucking hooker. Is this some sort of costume? Fetish shit?

When I open my eyes again, though, the monster is gone. My heart feels heavy and tears prick at the back of my eyes. Fuck, I'm so fucked up I'm crying over losing my monster. Then I manage to actually process the the upside down face staring down at me.

He's a nut-brown, elfin looking kid with a shock of dark hair and just the bare hint that he might be able to grow facial hair on his smooth skin. He has great big, dark brown eyes, and a button nose, and big full lips. I'm definitely right about him being some sort of Middle Eastern. What I don't expect is that he's about sixteen.

_Let's say eighteen._

A better version of me would try not to think too hard about why I thought that. But I'm pretty much the worst version of me right now. The version who landed in Barcelona and immediately got on a plane to Ibiza because I knew I could score and bury myself there. The version who threw my phone into the sea and was about to throw myself in, too. Because fuck Rose and her visions of a future we can help shape or save. Fuck everything except how empty I feel.

But I remember in this super clear flash, fucking that girl in the club. I couldn't get off, I remember. I look at him, and I pull away and force myself to my feet, swaying. Turn around, get a better look. He's wearing dark eyeliner, a mesh shirt, and short shorts. Yeah. Yeah, he's definitely a hooker. And he's really -- he's --

I want him.

It's this crazy feeling, because I haven't wanted anything except to bury myself since the day before I took off from JFK, but I really want him. "No police," I say, and a bit of tension goes out of him. He nods.

"Are you okay, jackass?" he asks, taking a step back. "What the fuck are you thinking, climbing up there? Jesus Christ."

"I was thinking I was going to kill myself," I admit.

His eyes go round and then shutter all at once. He holds his arms over his chest. "Sob stories don't get you discounts," he says.

"I wouldn't dream of underpaying a piece of ass as sweet as you," I say. Wrong thing to say, but it comes out anyway, because I'm scared of how much I need him and I'm a piece of fucking garbage.

His jaw bulges. "I don't fuck with wrecked out Americans, anyway," he says, turning. "Kill yourself for all I care, just do it away from here."

He's going to just walk out of my life and leave me where I was before. I scramble for something that will make him stay, and I notice the ribs showing through his shirt, the twigs of his arms and legs. Age of consent in Spain is thirteen, I remind myself, but I don't feel any less like a child-molesting piece of shit when I blurt: "A thousand US dollars."

The kid stops in his tracks. Then jerks his head. "Fine," he says. "I know a place."

"Great," I say, and I'm going to hell after all. The existential nightmare Rose put in my head is going to make hell a real place, just for me. I'll get what I want from him and then, after that, then I'll throw myself to the sharks. A better ending. "Do you have the date?"

He shoots me a look. "Fucking weirdo," he spits. He shakes his head. "November 14th. 2011."

Three days since the world ended.

Okay. Cool.


	2. To Show Avicii I Was Cool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

I'm imagining a run down, filthy old hostel crawling with cockroaches with pillows more full of bedbugs than stuffing. That seems like the sort of venue where this night ends. Where everything ends.

I follow the kid like a happy little tagalong, and I stare at his ass. I kind of lose myself in the repetitive, mesmerizing jiggle, one cheek firming and then the other. I might be giving someone my platinum credit card and something might smell like orange trees and I might be walking on marble floor and I might hear the tinkling of water and pleasant music, but it's all kind of just a blur, like the things passing by on the sides of your car when you're focused on the road ahead. The road ahead is an underaged kid's fine, fine ass.

I'm fucked up. I'm so fucked up.

We're in an elevator, and it's shiny chrome and blue glowing buttons. I realize that we're probably not actually in some depressing hole in the wall where hope, love, and thirty-something millionaire superstars go to die. My brain keeps skipping like a record over reality itself, and the truth is I don't think it's all the drugs. I'd been so ready to be dead right now that my continued existence is starting to feel surreal in a way that's hard to explain.

My third movie has this fucking brilliant bit where I start riffing on the whole post credits scene thing. I loved this bit so fucking much when I put it together. I have to admit, even though I kind of hate everything I've ever said, done, or thought right now, I still think this is fucking gold. I just kept loading post credits scenes onto this movie. Post post credits. Post post post post credits. After a full thirty minutes of a black screen I'd filmed this extreme closeup of Stiller where you can basically see the actual blackheads inside of his pores and held it onscreen for two seconds. There's three total hours of this post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post credits scene-scene-scene-scene-scene nightmare.

I feel like I'm living that experiment right now. This is the post credits scene of my life. Movie's over, folks, because Rose is definitely dialing every international agency she can get her hands on trying to find my body and here we are, post-credits, only Stiller's face is a kid's butt.

We end up in the sort of room that I would have booked myself. It has a full wall tv screen, a king-sized waterbed, and carpets that you can sink your toes into and get a full body shudder of pleasure. The kid tosses the keys onto the table. He turns around, arms folded, face set in a glower, and fixes me with a look. He's waiting for me to say something.

"Not really what I expected," I say. Definitely has way more favourable room service to cockroaches ratio than I'd anticipated.

"No surveillance cameras, discreet staff, full amenities," the kid says. I really can't place his accent. It's not Saudi, but it's close? But I swear, it almost sounds Egyptian. And his English is really fucking good. Like, almost suspiciously good. I run his words over in my head and realize that if he knows this place, if he knew exactly where to come and how to book a room, then I'm probably his clientele.

Not sure how I feel about that. Or why he looks so damn skinny, if I'm the sort of business he does. 

"How much is this costing me?" I ask, sounding really casual. I don't care, at all. My credit limit could buy the entire island and everyone on it and I really don't intend to be around to have to pay it off.

The kid's eyes harden and his jaw bulges. "It's not coming out of your grand, if that's what you mean," he says. "Accommodations are out of _your_ pocket, lothario."

"Whoa, hold on." I hold up my hands. "I'm not planning to stiff you." I think about that. Try to put on my charming grin; it feels a bit stiff, itself. "Well, I guess I am."

The kid snorts. "Fucking perfect, I picked up a funny one." He looks me over. "What are you thinking?" he asks.

Right. Time to look at the menu and order. I stall. "What does the money get me?"

His eyes are so fucking cold. "Cash like that? Whatever you fucking want."

Be still my fucking heart. The romance. But the answer makes my heart beat a little faster, and I feel like a disgusting old man when my eyes sweep over him slowly. I think over my options, feeling my temperature rise a little. I want that ass. I want that mouth. I want that lithe little body all against mine. I want...

_To feel something._

Yeah, back up, Strider. That's a little too much content for a post-credits scene. But it doesn't go away, and I look into his eyes. I have to clear my throat before I can talk again. "What's your name?"

I get the joy of seeing him look shocked. "What the fuck?"

"What, does that cost more?"

"I don't give my name to johns, idiot."

"Cause I'm willing to _pay_ more," I wheedle.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me right now!"

"Come on. Come on..."

"Wh -- _fuck_. Just --" He makes an exasperated sound and his hand pushes through his mass of wild hair. He has black nail polish and it makes me think of Rose. Don't think of Rose. The kid seems to make up his mind. "Jim," he says, and there's a little glint in his eye.

"Oh, bullshit!" I scoff. "Come on. At least make it believable."

He drops his arms. "Car-cat," he says, instead, and I actually laugh.

"Yeah, okay. Solid step away from believable, there. Shoulda stuck with Jim."

"Oh, fuck you!" The kid has thick eyebrows and they pull down over his eyes. "That one was my actual name, jackass. Karkat. Like Karkinos. Like the crab. You don't have to be a fucking douchenozzle about it."

"Oh." Okay, well, now that he's clarified, that rings a bell. A weirdly familiar bell, actually. Something about the name Karkat and the sign Cancer and... I shake it off. Not really relevant to my post-credits scene. I wanted something to call him, and I've got it. I step a little closer. "I'm Dave," I say. My voice sounds way too soft, and it makes me flush. "Dave Strider."

"Fucking perfect," Karkat mutters, but I do see a little heat in his cheeks and he drops his eyes from mine. He doesn't seem to recognize my name, which is... nice, actually. And he looks real cute as he avoids my gaze. "Now we're basically fucking BFFs for life. What the fucking Christ. I pick up the one suicidal, whacked out American who wants to fucking _cuddle_."

Sometimes you're at a restaurant and you're not sure what you want but you have a hankering for _something_. You're just pouring over the menu. And that looks nice, and that looks nice, and oh that sounds really good. But then you see something, a picture, or the name of a dish, and there's this weirdly profound crystal clarity, considering this is just food. _Yes_ , you think. _That's it. What's what I came here for._

I swear to God, that's the exact feeling I get when he says the word _cuddle_.

I reach out. I brush my thumb across his cheekbone. He averts his gaze entirely, which is... pretty cute. Not going to lie. I think about the topless hottie I'd been thumping against the club wall. I think of the two blonde, foreign girls back at my actual hotel room, groupies I'd been eager to lose myself in. I think of the guy who'd given me the eye on the trans-atlantic flight and how he'd sucked my soul out through my dick in the airplane bathroom.

I think of Rose.

There's something linking all of them, here. Common denominator in the cavernous emptiness burning inside of me. I take a step closer to Karkat and his breath hitches. We're standing close enough that I can feel his body heat.

I don't want to fuck. I want to _connect_.

I tilt his chin up. "How old are you?" I ask.

This look of pleading desperation crosses his face and then is gone. "Why are you asking so many fucking questions?" he demands. "I'm eighteen. I'm twenty-one. I'm fourteen. I'm as old as you want me to be. What's wrong with you? Just -- just get on with it, just..."

I run my hands through his hair. Yeah, okay. Why are we dancing around this?

I lean down and I kiss him.

He's a good kisser. Shit, is he ever. His mouth is warm and soft and yielding and he definitely fucking knows how to be inviting. He leaves his mouth open just a little, practically begging me to slide my tongue inside, so I do. I plunder his sweet mouth gently and with great enthusiasm, and he meets my tongue with his in all the right places.

I've forgotten to breathe and I break away, panting. "I want you to fuck me like you're my boyfriend," I say breathlessly. My hands cradle his face, fingers brushing his cheeks.

"Whatever you want," he agrees, and his voice makes me crazy. I go back in for another kiss.

I groan into his mouth. My hands slide down his neck, his arms, come to rest on his round sweet ass. He puts his arms up around my neck and I shudder, yes. I can feel his body pressed against me all the way down. I want to push through his skin and reach something deeper, to immerse myself inside of him, to pluck the electric pulses of his nervous system like Rose on her violin. I want to feel him, I want to _know_ him. He moans and I go just crazy, losing myself in him.

I break away again, forehead pressing against his. There has be some way, some way to feel more, stronger, harder. I'm so hard and so turned on, longing -- just _longing_ , every part of me --

I look down at him.

He's got his eyes closed real tight, face scrunched up like he's waiting for a blow. I can't tell if it's because he thinks one's coming, or if it's because this tender fucking bullshit is the worst case scenario for him and he's just trying to get through it.

And --

and

Fuck.

fucking

Idiot.

fuck

He isn't my boyfriend, are you kidding me, Strider? Not even close. He's a teenage prostitute on an island that basically exists for rich white people get high as balls, blow their eardrums listening to pretentious DJs, and then get their brains fucked out. Karkat kisses me, moans for me, embraces me -- because I paid him to. He doesn't want my desperation clinging all over him. He's just going to outlast me and see how high he can drive up the price. I'm using him and I'm taking advantage of him and even that doesn't really matter to me, except that that makes it _just as fucking meaningless as everything else._

I step away, out of his arms.

"Fuck," I say. The emptiness is back, maybe worse than before, I feel tears prickling at the back of my eyes. What am I doing? What the fuck am I looking for? What fucking _is_ this? There's one single person in the entire world who has _ever_ given me any sort of real connection and I ruined everything with her and what's the point of -- any of this? "Fuck, I'm sorry. I'm not -- I don't know what the fuck this is, I --"

Karkat's eyes flicker open. He looks at me. I can't read him. "What's wrong?" he asks. His fingers reach for me, and for just a second it feels real, it feels familiar, it feels comfortable, and I go to step back, tell him I'm fine, nothing's wrong. But I stop myself when I remember I told him to pretend he's my boyfriend. He's not my boyfriend. He's just some poor kid I've cast to star in my fucked up post-credits scene.

"I can't do this," I say. I run a hand through my hair and step away. I get halfway to the door before he stops me.

"Hey," he says, and I turn like a fucking idiot, my heart lifting, cause some dumbass part of me is thinking, holy shit, he wants me to stay. But his arms are folded again and his eyes are cold and hard and he's got his feet planted like he's waiting for a fight. "I don't kiss on the mouth for free, asshole. Don't you fucking dare just walk out of here!"

Right. Right, this was a transaction. I open my wallet. I've got three grand in USD and a few hundred euros in cash. I consider for a second, then shrug. Eh. Can't take it with you. It's probably going to end up in some sleazy policia pocket anyway when they find my corpse and the post credits scenes finally stop. Might as well go to a kid who probably has higher ambitions than this. Hell, at least become real high class with the whole operation. He'd get better clients with a form-fitting three piece suit than he ever will with the Avicii follower get-up.

I roll up the banknotes and toss them his way.

I savour the look on his face as he counts the money. His eyes are practically bulging by the end, and his eyes snap to my face. Not so cold and hard, now. He really does have beautiful eyes. I tip an invisible hat to him. "All the best, Kitkat," I tell him, and I get the pleasure of watching his gaze go flat with annoyance before I leave.

I'm definitely a lot more sober than I was. I'm able to triangulate what street I'm on, hail a taxi, and find my way back to my own hotel. My rooms are dark and the Swedish blondes are gone. There are several days just missing from my chronology, so that's pretty fair. There are other bored, empty millionaires who'd actually make their daily payments. Nothing personal, girls.

I go into the bathroom. I fish around in my toiletries bag. There's a rattling sound and I withdraw the pills.

Rose made me go to a shrink. Rose is always looking out for me. Rose reminds me every day that antidepressants don't do shit if you don't take them.

Well, good news, Rose. I'm going to take them.

So I do.

I lay in my bed and stare at the ceiling and wait for something to happen. I've decided that ODing is a way cooler story for my legacy than drowning. Mixing SSRIs with some truly weird and wonderful designer drugs and dying in a grand a night hotel room, on an island I'm not even supposed to be on... that's a damn good Dave Strider story. That's one they can print in the papers and be fucking proud of. Shit, I should have written a note. Could I still get up and do it? Maybe something really cryptic, like I could imply that maybe I'd taken the pills at gunpoint and only you can find out who my killer is, person listening to this hot take on CNN right now. Never let it be said I'm not a showman to the end.

But I can't do that to Rose.

I can't put that on her. She'll know it was one of my stunts, but she, at least, deserves the clean break of the texts I sent her and that's all, without any bullshit mind games that will stick in her craw and choke her. _That_ was my suicide note.

And a vindictive part of me wants to imagine what the news stories will be like. We never really thought of him as a person. He was such a clever peddler of irony that we never took the time to find out who he was beneath it. If only we could have offered him something real instead of just swallowing his bullshit with our mouths gaping wide open.

Yeah... something is definitely happening now.

My legs feel numb. There's a weight in my chest and my vision is strangely faded. I try to move my head to one side but it just seems like way too much fucking effort. It's nice, kind of, to have my body finally matching the way my brain is thinking.

Rose will be okay. Rose will be better off. She can find some other schlub to help her deal with the whole Crockercorp shit. Someone who's _actually_ a hero instead of someone who just fooled her into thinking he was one for two decades. Rose will find someone who actually matches her fucking sexual preferences and isn't the same horny teenage boy acting like a fucking...

The thought floats away. Thoughts start to get really abstract, and that's good too. I like this, except for the weight in my chest. A couple of hours, and all of this will be over. Just a couple of...

Fuck. Here come the hallucinations.

The kid, the hooker, Karkat, his face is above me, blocking my view of the ceiling. His hands are on my shoulders. There's a strange nocturnal gleam in his eyes. Are his irises red? He has his hands on my face and I think that it's really nice my brain is running a simulation of fucking him before I die, after all, but then I feel him shaking me and I realize with a fucking rush of so many emotions at once, that this _isn't_ a hallucination at all.

He's on the phone, and I struggle to hear his words. He's speaking rapidfire Catalan and I don't know how to parse it. I hear something about an American and something about an ambulance and then darkness rises up to envelop me.

I think I smile.


	3. Interlude 1: June, 1981 // WELCOME FOSTER CHILDREN OF AMERICA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

He squirmed impatiently in the back of the van. He fiddled with the straps on his ancient, ragged HR Pufnstuf backpack while the seats closer to the front slowly emptied out. He swung his legs, and he furrowed his brow, and he turned and looked out the window.

There were already a lot of other kids running out and about in the camp grounds. Some girls about his age were playing jump rope. A group of boys were trading baseball cards. Some of them were wearing new, shiny clothes, but most of them looked about as tattered as he knew he did. That was good. Maybe he'd fit in.

The van driver finally got to him. He straightened and tried to be good and keep still while the driver undid his seat belt for him like he was a baby.

"There we go, buddy," the driver said, helping him down from his seat. He checked his clipboard. "You're Michael Johnson?"

"Yeah," Michael said.

The driver made a mark on the board. "Okay, we're all good here!" He helped him down. "See that building right over there? You just head in and meet all your counselors! Have a great summer, Mikey!"

_Mikey_. He tried the nickname out in his head, but it didn't feel right. Nothing ever did.

The big log building was packed full of both kids and counselors and it was so loud Michael instinctively clapped his hands over his ears. He wandered about in a wide-eyed daze until one of the counselors grabbed his arm.

"You don't have a name tag!" she shouted over the drum of noise. He blinked at her. Was he supposed to get a name tag? His confusion must have showed on his face, because she pointed to a long table swarming with other kids. "Go there and get one! Do you have a team yet?" He shook his head. She put her hands on her hips and let out a frustrated stream of air. "Ugh, this is so disorganized..."

Was he supposed to go? He didn't know. She'd let go of his arm, but...

She saw him staring up at her and shook her head. "Okay, just go fill out a name tag and then go and wait by the big tree outside, okay? Go there and don't move."

He nodded. It felt better to have some sort of instruction.

He had to shoulder some other kids aside to get to the table. He picked up a red marker, because red was his favourite colour, and got a sheet with the big HELLO, MY NAME IS tags on it. He bit the tip of his tongue as he took his time writing out M I C H A E L. And then he looked at the tag, and he made a face.

He peeled it off and crumpled it up and tossed it down onto the uneven wood floor.

If it was so super disorganized, it might take days before they found out who he actually was. So he wrote M I K E Y on another sticker, but he hadn't liked that, either, so he peeled and scrunched and started again.

T O M M Y.

Peel. Crumple.

J I M M Y.

Peel. Crumple.

M A R K.

Peel. Crumple.

C O O L D U D E.

He laughed. But then crumpled that, too. He didn't think anyone would believe that was his name, and the point was to fool people so hard that "Michael" felt as wrong to them as it felt to him.

D A V E.

His marker left the sticker and he gazed at the red letters. He cocked his head. That one... fit. Something about it seemed to stick against him like other names, including his own, never had. It felt like _him._

He peeled it, and this time, he stuck it onto his old, threadbare shirt. He smoothed it over so it didn't pucker, and then he pushed his way back through the crowd, away from the hail of discarded names he'd left on the floor, and left the cabin. He saw the tree the counselor had told him about and headed over there.

There was a girl sitting under it. She was reading a book.

She had her legs tucked under her and was wearing a pink skirt and a headband with bows on it in her hair. She was as pale and freckled as he was, but blonder. Her old t-shirt was a few sizes too small, and he immediately felt a kinship with her, because his sneakers had holes in them. And because it felt like he knew her from somewhere, but that thought was strange and coiled up oddly in the back of his head and wouldn’t go away.

He settled down beside her. Her name tag had been written in purple. It said "S U S A N." She didn't look like a Susan.

"Hi," he said.

She turned her page.

"Where are you from?"

No response.

He picked a few strands of grass. Kids and counselors were streaming in and out of the big log cabin. He looked back at the girl. The book looked really thick, like a real chapter book. "Did a counselor tell you to sit here, too?"

"Yes," she answered. Just that, but he felt a surge of victory.

He looked back at the building. There was a banner hanging over the door, and he sounded out the words. WELCOME FOSTER CHILDREN OF AMERICA, he finally managed to make out. He could bet anything that the girl could have read it without even taking time to study the words. She seemed like the smart type.

"What's your book about?" he asked.

She sighed. She tucked a scrap of paper between the pages and closed it, then turned the cover to face him. _Dracula_ , by Bram Stoker. He was impressed.

"Aw, hell! Are you not scared out of your pants?"

"No," she said. "I don't get scared. Fear is a product of the weakest part of the human mind. I let myself get thrilled, but never scared."

"Oh," he replied. That was a strange sort of answer, but he kind of liked it. It sounded smart. "Where are you from?"

"New York," she said. "I take it you're from Texas? You have the accent." Her gaze dropped to his name tag. "Dave," she said, pronouncing the name carefully, and it sounded _right_ coming out of her mouth. "What's your last name, Dave?"

He couldn't tell her it was Johnson, because then she'd tell a counselor and ruin his cover. So he said the first thing that came to his mind. "Strider."

She blinked, and then she laughed. He liked her laugh a lot. Her violet eyes twinkled. "Are you the lost king of Gondor?" she asked.

His nose wrinkled. "What?"

"Never mind." She shook her head. Smiled at him. "I don't think that's your real name." Her voice took on a confidential tone. "It's much too interesting. Real people have boring names. Like Susan Smith. We never have interesting, or beautiful, or exotic, or fun names."

He rubbed at the back of his neck. He kicked at the grass a bit, and then shrugged. "Okay, maybe it's not my real name. But I like it. I think it's a really cool name." He shot her a look. "Don't tell anyone. I'll say you're making it up for attention."

Her expression sobered. "Well," she said. "It wouldn't be the first time someone accused me of that when I was telling the truth."

He looked away quickly. But the words stuck with him, choking him all the way down. They hung in the air and he needed to purge them. "Um," he started. "Um. You know, you don't have to be Susan Smith. No one is here to tell you that you're Susan Smith. Everybody is running around like a headless chicken."

"When they finally sort it all out, there's going to be two names missing and two names that just popped out of nowhere," she said. She sounded very, very reasonable. Almost so reasonable that she was making fun of him, but he didn’t think so. "I doubt they're going to assume that _you're_ Susan."

"But that could be a week," he told her, looking back at her face. "And that's a week you can spend being whoever you want. Like, _whoever_. That's cool, right? Who would you be, if you could be _anybody_?"

She opened her mouth, and he could tell she was just going to shut him down and instruct him to go put the right name tag on. But then her lips closed and she glanced off. She stroked the cover of her book. Finally, she replied: "I think I'd be someone mysterious. Dramatic. Like… Carlotta. Mia. Juliet. Portia. Rose." She stopped. She nodded. "Rose," she said firmly.

She looked like a Rose. He couldn't imagine a better name for her. It just... fit, like a puzzle piece falling perfectly into place. Something tickled the back of his head, but when he went digging for it, it was gone.

He leaned closer and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "We should go and get a name tag that says that," he said. "It'll be so dope. Everyone will call you Rose until they find out differently. And then they'll already know you as Rose, so they'll keep calling you Rose. See? I've got this all planned."

She squirmed away and gave him a chastising look. There was a little smile on her lips, though, and he smiled back. He thought that she liked him, maybe. He hoped that she did. "This is very silly," she said. "Why so much fuss over a name? I've always been Susan."

"You've always been _you_ ," he said. "Susan is a sticker they put on you that holds who they say you are together. It isn't _you_."

She blinked and looked away. He didn't know where that came from. Someplace weird and deep and he found himself just suddenly hating that things kept coming out of him without his consent. "Sorry," he said. "I bet you had really nice parents who died who gave you that name. I was a surrender baby." He doesn't know what exactly that means -- just that there had never been parents. Never been anyone who cared about him. "They just took the most common name registered that month and stuck it on me. So I don't like it." Because it was a label he wore, a daily reminder that there had never been a day in his life where anyone had actually wanted him.

The girl stood up suddenly. She tucked her book into a worn old canvas bag she held at her side, and extended a hand down to him. He eyed it suspiciously.

"Are you gonna toss me into the dirt?" he asked. "I said I was sorry. I open my mouth sometimes and stuff just comes out."

"I'm not going to toss you," she said primly. "I just want company while I perform this act of perjury."

He didn't know what that meant, but he let her help him up and dusted his knees off with his hands. "Does that mean you're going to do it?"

"Yes, I think so," she said, with a brilliant smile. She had perfect teeth. "You convinced me. The only catch is that you can't blow my cover. In fact, we should corroborate one another's stories. So we'll spend the month together, and you swear that I'm Rose Lalonde, and I'll swear that you're Dave Strider."

He was so eager to be let in on a secret that he nearly gave himself whiplash nodding.

When she tore off her Susan tag and replaced it with the Rose one, he couldn't help but feel like something ever so slightly crooked had been put right.


	4. When I Finally Got Sober I Felt 10 Years Older

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

TT: Well, far be it from me to speak a word of dissent against the great Dave Strider. It's impossible to know what the consequences of such an action could be.  
TG:: okay rad  
TG:: its taken us years to get to this point but im real happy youre finally figuring shit out  
TG:: we should probably hold some sort of shindig in honour of this moment  
TT: Oh, most assuredly. I'll bake a cake and write "At Long Last, I Have Seen The Easiest Way Out Is a Smile and a Nod." You can have the piece with 'long' on it, as I'm sure you can extract all sorts of innuendo from the experience.  
  
I grin, laughing under my breath. I like to pretend she's a bag of wind, but she can always make me laugh. Somewhere, something twinges, and I think that things aren't okay between us, but I can't seem to remember why I think that or what happened. Right now, things feel... good.

Things feel pretty great.

TG:: you should serve yourself the piece with easiest on it  
TG:: and then you can serve yourself in the truest way  
TG:: see what I did there  
TT: Yes, Dave, I do in fact see what you did there.  
TG:: ok good its hella crucial that you're not missing out on the intricate levels of my sass  
  
There's this annoying noise fluttering at the edge of my hearing. Like an annoying, repetitive beep, pinging over and over and over again.

TT: Dave?  
  
I squeeze my eyes, trying to focus on Rose and not on whatever that is. My arm hurts, but when I look down at it, everything seems on the level.

TG:: yeah what  
TT: Do you  
TT: Hm.  
TT: Do you ever stop and think for a moment and realize that you're actually... happy? That things are good and simple and easy?  
TT: Do you ever think that maybe you'd be fine if we never ended up at our destination, and we just stayed here, forever.  
  
What's she talking about? Destination? Well, never mind that. _Happy_? Shit, Rose. That's incredibly optimistic, here, do you know who you're talking to? But I'm typing a response without thinking.

TG:: yeah  
TG:: yeah i know what you mean i just like  
TG:: ugh i actually try not to think about this because i start feeling guilty because of course i start to miss everybody and i know we have big important things to do and who the fuck feels content when they're in a three years long transition period where theres literally nothing productive to accomplish  
TG:: like what sort of person is like  
TG:: look i know i have huge things in front of me including literal godhood and thats cool and all but  
TG:: nah  
TG:: i wanna just camp out on this rock for the rest of my life  
TT: Imagine how I feel.  
TT: I'm supposed to be a Light player, remember. Focused on the goal and interested primarily with the path we must take to reach victory.  
TT: It's a rejection of my entire self, my entire reason for existing, to be so content with such a meandering, purposeless life.  
TT: And yet...  
  
"Hey."

I recognize the voice. I can't place it, but I _know_ I recognize it. And it makes my heart swell and my toes tingle and I feel that thing Rose was talking about -- the thing that _I_ was talking about without even knowing what the fuck I was rambling on about. Happy. I feel really, really happy.

I want to turn towards that voice, away from the annoying beeping and the pain in my arm.

I glance up from my phone. 

Happy vanishes. Because I'm sitting with my ass perched on a ledge, and all around me is this black abyss of nothingness, this utterly fucking soulless void, and my eyes catch something, a flicker of movement, and when my brain starts putting together the _size_ and _dimensions_ of what could have caused that movement and measuring it against the size and dimensions of _me_ , I actually might shit my pants, and so I --

\-- flee --

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

My eyes flicker open.

They're sticky and crusty and it takes a long moment for my gaze to focus. I'm looking up at a tiled ceiling. My head is achey and there's this painful sort of itch right at the inner crease of my elbow. I go to scratch it, still blinking and trying to piece my, uh, _self_ together, really. My fingers come into contact with medical tape and tubing, and I think I remember where I am? Maybe.

I reach back, trying to recall things that are just at my fingertips. I glance over foggy, fading dream-thoughts of talking to Rose on some space station. I definitely remember getting on a plane in Barcelona-El Prat Airport, and getting off in Ibiza Town. After that...

Oh. Yeah.

Okay, so I definitely remember taking an entire bottle of pills. Wow. Really? That's like, the most suburban housewife way to kill yourself imaginable. Had I actually thought that was metal at the time? Nobody would be talking about the drugs. Everyone would be talking about the pills. I can just see the fucking headline. Superstar Hollywood Big Shot Dave Strider Is Dead, Basically A Rejected Sorority Pledge. Come on. Your brand deserves better than that, Strider.

And...

... Jesus.

I take a deep breath. I fight back a -- is that -- oh, yeah, that's a fucking sob coming from somewhere deep inside of me and I hate it. I hate it and I hate me. I can't believe I'm thinking about my brand right now. I cannot _believe_ that I'm in a European hospital with an IV in my arm whining about how uncool my attempt to end my own life was. Dipped in some 'casual macho misogyny,' as Rose would put it. That's where my brain goes. That's who I am.

This is the sort of tool you want to get away from, except that he lives inside your own fucking head.

This is the reason why a guy tries to kill himself.

My mouth is thick like mothballs and my tongue feels swollen. I stop being such a fucking ponce for a goddamn second and actually take a second to take stock of my body. And boy, I've done a number on it. Every part of me aches. I'm starving but the thought of food makes me feel like puking. The IV hurts like hell. I have noodly veins. They always have to try like six times to get the damn thing in. Fuck.

Fuck.

"Fuck," I say, and my voice sounds like a creaky old door.

I sense more than hear movement. Someone clears their throat. I try to prop myself up in bed, and wince. What the fuck did I _do_ to myself?

"Idiot. Here. Use this."

Someone presses something that feels like a burner cell phone into my hand. I fumble around with it, and oh, hey. The bed starts to move, putting my head up on an incline. In hilarious slow motion (I could use this for a shot. Fuck that I'm never making a movie again.) my room starts to come into view, as well as my companion.

It's the kid. The hooker.

Karkat.

He's not looking right at me. And he looks... fuck, a whole lot different. His slutty raver clothes are gone and he's wearing worn, scuffed jeans and a zip-up hoodie like three sizes too big for him. His hands are shoved into the front pockets and without the makeup he wore, he looks both older and younger than before. There's an angry flush darkening his brown cheeks.

I remember now. In flashes and stutters, like the least fun strobe-lit night of my life. Meeting the kid, the hotel, kissing him, leaving him. And then him in my room. On my phone. Slapping me across the face. There are paramedics in my hotel room and he's still there. I'm riding in an ambulance and he's still there.

He stayed.

That's...

Huh.

"Hey," I say. I sound a little bit less like a dead frog this time, which is nice. I do, however, sound confused and hopeful and touched and pathetic. Less nice.

"Yeah. Hi." Karkat reaches up and tugs at one of the drawstrings on his hood. He doesn't elaborate, I don't know what to say, and the flush on his cheeks deepens. "Awesome, as fucking scintillating as this is, I'm supposed to page the doctor when you get up. So I'm going to do that, now."

He gets halfway up from his chair before I manage to remember how to make my tongue move. There are a whole lot of things in what he's saying that I could latch onto, but there's time for that later. I think that some things need to be asked right now, or I'm going to lose the chance.

"You were in my hotel room. You made the call."

Slowly, the kid sinks back into the chair. His shoulders hunch up like he's cringing away from a blow. Protecting himself. "So?"

"Uh, so, you saved my fucking life, dude."

He shrugs. Both hands get shoved back into his pockets and he curls a bit in the seat. It's a marked difference between the working boy persona I saw before. I have this flash of insight -- it's a shield. He can act one way when he's wearing a costume. Without it, he can't.

I know that feeling.

"Is that normally included in your fee? Follow-up services?" I ask. I try to make my voice sound all teasing and fun but I just can't hack it. So it comes out sounding depressingly sincere, which sounds _depressingly_ pathetic.

He shoots me a dark look, eyes glaring out from beneath the fringe of his hair. "Look, okay. No. Listen, it wasn't --" He growls and mutters something under his breath. I really wish I could make it out. "People saw us together at the hotel."

"I thought it was supposed to be all super discreet."

"It is! And -- shut the fuck up and stop interrupting. You seemed... well, you seemed really fucked up! And if you ended up fucking dead somewhere, then a really not fun amount of people had seen us together and I didn't need that, okay? 'Discreet' doesn't extend to dead celebrities. The _last_ thing I want is policia snuffling around because I'd taken some famous American up to a room and then someone fished him out of the harbour." Karkat looks away, biting his lower lip. It's... really cute. "I don't want that shit on my plate, got it?"

"Got it," I say. I try to frame this funny rejoinder where I'm like haha but I took pills instead of drowning myself so blah blah, I don't know. I can't find the comedy in the situation enough to try and piece together how to make it funny. Usually I'm pretty good at this sort of thing. I scratch my arm again. Fuck the IV itches like hell. I sigh and try not to fuck with it. If I pull that thing out it's going to be a whole fucking song and dance in here and I'm not ready to try and look some Spanish doctor in the face and be like yo we're both super-aware of how I tried to off myself and you saved me, how fun is that?

Sooo fucking fun.

"Well," I say, to distract him from summoning the doctor anyway. "I guess I'm alive."

"Yeah," Karkat says. "Guess so."

I really, really, really want to ask -- why are you still here? Because that's where his self-motivated explanation falls apart. Even if I believe that a pro who just inherited a frankly absurd amount of cash is afraid of getting questioned in what's obviously a suicide, I just can't wrap my head around why he'd stick around. Sitting by my fucking bedside like he's my boyfriend or something. Does he still think he's on the clock? Does he feel like he has some sort of... obligation? Is he one of those people who see a huge wad of cash as a debt to be repaid?

I hate the thought. I fucking hate it. The last thing I need is more people around me who don't want to be there, people who don't care about me, people who don't know me, people who only see the stupid facade I just can't stop putting up no matter how hard I try. It had all seemed like something I could handle, before the crimson battleship appeared in the sky over the eastern seaboard and Rose had fucking collapsed in front of me, convulsing.

Now?

What is the fucking point of a life filled with fake bullshit? Fake feelings, fake people, fake friendships, fake statements, and the fakest fake thing of all -- my own fucking self? What's the _point_?

I realize that I wish I had succeeded in my high school attempt at killing myself.

It's not a good thought. And I don't particularly want to try again. But I wish that my first go at it had stuck, because then I wouldn't be here.

I'm just so fucking tired.

"Well," I say. I just want to get it over with, now, because I can't fucking stand the thought of him sitting there, wanting to be gone. "Cool, thanks. I mean..." I try to work up some real heart for it -- the kid had saved my fucking _life_ for Christ's sake -- but I just can't find it. I sigh. "I really appreciate that you cared enough to come after me." Semi-truth provides semi-sincerity. Good as I can do. "You can probably... go now."

"I need to page the doctor," Karkat says.

"God, please don't," I beg. I close my eyes. "Please. Fuck, dude. I don't want to trot out my shitty-ass Catalan to try and communicate with a doctor who knows that I tried to fuck myself up and like, fuck, man, no way. That sounds like a nightmare." The word nightmare triggers remnants of the one I'd had, of something massive and malevolent lurking in the darkness of space. I shake it off.

"Look, if I'm leaving, I have to page the fucking doctor. So if you want me to go, I'm going to do that."

"Then don't go!"

Jesus Christ.

I turn my head to the side. I squeeze my eyes and grit my teeth and fist my hands. I try and get myself together, but how am I supposed to do that? "Okay," I say. "Look. Okay. Just -- tell me why you stayed, okay? Or, I guess -- do you _want_ to be here? Tell me that. Honestly, please, Jesus fuck, I cannot handle people being nice to me right now." Maybe that's the real reason I don't want to see the doctor. Hello, Mr. Strider! You had quite a close call, there! Yeah, no, get that fake-ass smile away from me before I short circuit.

After a long silence, I hear fabric shift as Karkat shrugs. "I don't not want to be here," he says, and there's something I can't quite place in his voice. "Is that good enough? I mean, I'm not trying to be obtuse, I just mean that I'm not sitting here wishing I weren't here."

 _Is_ that good enough? Fuck, who knows. Maybe. I don't think he's lying, at least, and he isn't playing a game, dancing for more money, either, so that's a thing.

"Okay," I say, and then, because I can't leave well enough alone, "but why?"

"Has anyone ever told you you're a fucking insufferable douchebag and a constant pain in the ass to be around?"

I think of Rose and smile faintly. "Um. Yeah."

Karkat sighs. I hear him move again. I imagine him running a hand through that gorgeous mass of hair. "Look, I don't know, okay? There's just... I don't know. You..." He growls again. "I don't fucking know! I just don't want to leave! Okay? Do you require a fucking twelve point list?"

I laugh faintly. "Yeah, okay. I can do without the list, I guess. Maybe. For now." I still don't have it in me to look at him again. I can't tell if I'm embarrassed or what. "Do you have a last name?" I ask him.

"Everybody's got a last name, jackass."

Yeah, true enough. I even had one before I'd rebranded myself, and I didn't come from anywhere at all. "That was me subtly trying to get you to tell it to me."

A pause. "Vantas," he says. "Karkat Vantas."

I nod. I finally work up the nerve to turn my head back. There's a brush of coolness against my cheek, and I realize that I'd actually shed a tear. Damn. I must be on my fucking period, here. _There's nothing funny or shameful about menstruation, Dave,_ Rose's voice chastises in my head. _I think you would consider the amount of blood I've shed in my lifetime rather 'manly,' in truth._

Rose.

God, Rose. What have I done to Rose? She deserves to know that I'm alive, but I can't stand the thought of telling her. I still don't want to face her, for one thing. And for another... for another, once I make contact with Rose -- with _anyone_ from my actual life, and not Karkat Vantas the island hooker who exists in the vacuum of this specific bender -- reality is back with a vengeance. The vacation of being in the space between life and death ends, and I resign myself to continuing to live.

"Heard anything about Rebranding Day this far out?" I ask. I try and sound casual.

Karkat gets this furrow between his brows. I have this weird urge to reach out and smooth it. "Yeah, fucking obviously," he says. "We made contact with alien life, dumbass. This is Europe, not fucking Uranus."

"Wow, I'm super judging your choice of _Uranus_ , here. God, that shit is a trip. Either you pronounce it so that it's a ass joke or you pronounce it so that it's a piss joke. There is no dignity in any quarter for poor Uranus." I pause. "Maybe she's from Uranus. You know. Betty Crocker, or whoever she is." I know who she is. If I believe Rose. Which I do.

"Is that what... all of this is about?" Karkat asks. He makes a vague motion with his hand. 'All of this,' meaning the IV, the heart monitor, the hospital room, the island, _him_. "The whole thing is fucking skull-crackingly insane, don't get me wrong, but I'm not sure it's the end of the world. After all, she's been here since the 20s, right?"

The end of the world is exactly what it is, if I believe Rose, which I do. 

But Karkat's saying what everyone's saying, what I heard on the flight over, what Rose and I watched on the news while she held an ice pack to her forehead and murmured the things that she'd seen during her seizure. The battleship is terrifying, sure, but Betty Crocker the alien empress has been here for our lifetimes and then some. All she wants is to live on earth and conduct business in our fascinating capitalist system.

 _She intends to subjugate humanity and mold us into the empire she lost,_ Rose had said, her voice low and sonorous. _She'll fail. And then she'll have no use for us._

I'd turned to look at Rose, and the space between us had felt thick and heavy. _So... what?_ I'd asked.

 _So,_ Rose had said. Her violet eyes had shone in the dark, reflecting the light from the TV. _The world ended today. We're just watching its death throes._

And I'd loved Rose _so much_ , so much it had risen up in my throat and fucking choked me, just fucking sucked all the life out of me and all I'd been able to think about was that it wasn't fair, there was so much left for me to do, I'd never even made a real fucking connection in my _entire life_ to anyone except her -- just her... only her...

And then...

And then.

Karkat is still sitting by my bedside, confused, thinking I'm some doomsayer, waiting for an answer. I feel his eyes on me and I can't let myself remember what had happened next. I shake my head and meet his eyes.

"Yeah," I say. I try and sound carefree, but I can't. I just can't. "I guess it's not the end of the world."

There's a scuffle of movement at the door and I look up, expecting the doctor to finally have arrived on his rounds.

Instead, I'm looking at Rose.

"Oh my god," she says, and her voice breaks hard. "Oh my god, _Dave_."


	5. But Fuck It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

She looks like shit.

Rose's image is as cultivated as mine is, and I can't remember the last time I've seen her in public like this. I can't even remember the last time I've seen her in _private_ like this. It might have been never. She's dressed way down in a pair of yoga pants and a wrinkled blouse. She isn't wearing any of her characteristic dark makeup. I'm not exactly an expert, but I don't think she's wearing any makeup at _all_ , which would be a first. Her cheeks are puffy red, her eyes have bags underneath, and she just looks haggard as fuck. Her hair is in a ponytail. I've never seen her hair in a ponytail in my entire life. If anyone's taken photos of her, she's going to be furious.

Probably no one has. Because nobody would look at her and see the sleek, gothy, mysterious Rose Lalonde from her glamorous About The Author photos. She just looks like a slightly overweight, kind of pretty blonde woman who's had a fucking nightmare of a day.

And she looks like Rose.

Which fucking wrecks me.

We stare at one another. The silence starts to stretch. The beeping from my heart monitor is getting almost impudent, like it's begging for attention. Karkat doesn't move a muscle. Rose's bloodshot violet eyes are filled with tears, and her lips are folded so tight that they're white and she looks worse than I've ever seen her and I did this to her.

I'm a piece of shit.

"Hey," I say.

" _Fuck_ you." Rose bursts into tears.

Yeah. I deserve that.

I don't know what prompts me to throw a searching look at Karkat. He doesn't know me from Adam, assuming Adam is the name of a john who gets all the way to the hotel room, kisses like a desperate lonely virgin, and then hustles out of there to kill himself. I seek his eyes like he's going to provide some sort of moral support like it's an instinct or something. He's just as confused as I am. He glances to one side and the other, and then shakes his head quickly and looks down at the floor. He doesn't want to be here. Fair enough, I don't want to be here, either. I don't really want to be anywhere.

Rose drops her hands to her sides. "Do you know how -- can you possibly --" She chokes on sobs, and she needs a moment, and I can't look right at her. Good job, Strider, you've fucked her up really good. My heart fucking aches. I need to apologize, but I'm not sure I can.

"I've been calling you," she says, wiping tears. "Nothing but fucking voicemail."

"Yeah. My phone went for a swim in the Mediterranean."

"Idiot. What is _wrong_ with you? What were you thinking? Are you alright?"

One loaded question after another makes my soul creak under the weight. I take a deep breath. "Well," I say, and I sound too casual. So casual that I'm obviously screaming inside. It's so loud that I can't hear myself think. I doubt I'm missing out on much. "I'm alive."

Rose buries her face in her hands, and her shoulders shake just once, and I just...

I just can't.

I feel my muscles all go slack and I fall back into the bed, and I just can't. This whole conversation, this whole encounter, it's just... it's happening somewhere outside of me, and the plain and simple truth of it is that I really do wish I'd died. I'm seeing this vision of what's ahead of me and I feel so fucking...

What's the point?

What's the fucking point?

Nothing matters.

The dead, tense space between us stretches. Rose can't seem to look at me. And appropriately, I can't look at her, either, because there's just too much weight to her very presence. My miraculous aliveness doesn't change dick, in the end. Things are completely fucked up between us. Maybe fucked up beyond any possibility of repair. _Definitely_ too fucked up to start repairing so fucking soon. Rose had wanted to talk, blowing up my phone the whole way from JFK to the moment I dunked it in the sea, but now that we're in the same place, there really isn't anything to say. I think she's realizing that.

I think she knows that there's nothing either of us can say that will make it better.

She finally looks at me. "This is my fault," she says.

Kind of. And not even a little bit. I don't know what to say so I say nothing at all.

Karkat finally moves.

He slinks to his feet. "I... um. Yeah. This is bullshit and none of my business, so I'm going to fucking evacuate."

Watching Rose spring to life is like seeing some deadly desert creature wreck its prey. Her eyes flash and she pins Karkat with her gaze. Grief and confusion and regret and guilt all seem to disintegrate behind the intensity of Rose Lalonde finding a purpose. I envy her so deeply that it hurts. "You're the one who brought him here," she says. Her voice is a whipcrack. "You saved his life."

Karkat flushes darkly. He shoves his hands into his pockets, which hunches his shoulders forward. "Yeah?" The words are half a shield and half a challenge. The challenge part is a bad idea. Never challenge Rose.

Rose narrows her eyes. I'm watching her sort him out, putting him into boxes, take him apart and then build him back up in her mind. The thing is, she's missing crucial information. Without the slutty clothes and the eyeliner and mascara, he doesn't look like a pro. He just looks like a kid.

"You're Moroccan," she says, and if nothing else it's relief to finally have some context for the weird accent. "What are you doing in Ibiza?"

Karkat shrugs. I can see him shriveling under Rose's barbed attention. I don't think he's the type of dude who does well under intense scrutiny, which sucks for him. Sorry, bro, welcome to motherfucking scrutiny city, ruled by the Medusa gaze of Rose Lalonde. "Making money," he says.

"What for?" Rose doesn't even give him a moment to breathe.

He looks up with eyes flashing and it occurs to me that maybe he can give her a run for her money if she pushes him too hard.

"Maybe that's none of your fucking business?" he snaps, and she blinks. "I know you're probably real hot shit wherever you're from, but let me tell you how fucking microscopically little I give a shit sandwich about that. You might want to lead with something a little more like 'thanks for saving my...'" He shoots a glance back at me, and I shrug, because hell if I've ever been able to find a word to describe what Rose and I are, either. He shakes his head, meets Rose head on again, and his nostrils flare. "Fuck this, I'm out."

He goes to move around her, but she puts out an arm to block his way. "Your English is extremely good," she says. "You speak like it's your first language." Considering the colourful ass-reaming he just gave her, her voice is pretty damn conversational. That's just Rose and I'm used to it, but he looks fucking baffled by it. Baffled enough that he stammers for a second and then says:

"Thanks."

"You're very welcome. There isn't much need for English in Morocco. Arabic and French are the local tongues, and those who want to expand their horizons tend to focus on Spanish or Catalan."

Karkat clearly doesn't know what to say to that. I'm pretty fucking baffled at what she's getting at, myself, and I can usually follow her labyrinthine shit. He shrugs and rubs at his nose. For a flash of a moment, the gesture is so insanely fucking familiar that it staggers me, and then it's gone and he's just a teenager avoiding an awkward question from an adult. "Thanks," he says again.

"Are you going to get angry again if I ask you why you learned?"

Karkat looks up at her from under a furrowed brow. I realize that he's shorter than her by a good half a head. That's so fucking weird. It makes him seem younger. I'm not crazy about that; he's fucking young enough as it is, considering one of the few things I can clearly remember is how good kissing him felt. He doesn't say anything at all, and I guess Rose takes the best way it can be taken.

"Would you like to go to America?" she asks.

God, she's too fucking smart. Karkat's head jerks up and his eyes go wide and his hands fly out of his pockets. It all happens at once, and a second later he's got himself sorted and has realized he's shown his cards. He's hunching and sulking again and he shrugs. "I've thought about it. Sometimes. So fucking what?"

Yeah. Well. Nice try, Vantas, but you already blew the lid off this top secret operation. Even if you hadn't broadcast it so loud even _I_ heard it, Rose is a fucking bloodhound when it comes to reading people. You've got Uncle Sam on the brain and the cat is out the bag.

Rose is gracious enough not to point it out. Instead, she steps to one side. "Come back in five minutes, or so," she says. Her voice is about as gentle as it ever gets. "Or, if you want to squander an opportunity, walk out of here and go back and dealing ecstasy for raves. Obviously, I'd prefer the former, but you have a choice."

Karkat eyes her suspiciously for a long minute. His gaze flickers over to me, and I feel a flutter of _something_ when he meets my eyes before he looks away. It's this weird sense of deja vu, only I can't even place what it is that I'm deja vuing. All I know is that I feel like shit when he shuffles out of the room. I don't think he's dumb enough to go back to corners, but Rose doesn't know I lined his pockets pretty good. Maybe he'll decide he can get where he wants to go on his own.

It feels like there's a fucking hole in my chest if I let myself think that he's just going to walk out of this hospital and disappear. Fucking pathetic. I pay some poor kid to pretend he gives a shit about me and then let myself get good and convinced that he _does_.

I'm so worked up about this dumb shit that I forget to consider that I'm alone with Rose until she speaks again.

"Dave." Her voice is so goddamn quiet it barely sounds like her. Rose always sounds like she chose all her words in advance, arranged them perfectly, strung them on a line, and then when she finally speaks, she's more reciting than anything else. Right now? Not so much. Right now she sounds as human and as fumbling as I always feel when I'm talking.

Which I'm not. Because if I say a single word without the buffer of Karkat sitting there judging me, I... honestly don't know what will come out.

"You can't imagine how glad I am that you're alive," she says.

"That makes one of us," I say. It's a shitty fucking thing to say and she flinches and I hate that I just keep hurting her and I also don't care. I don't fucking care. I don't fucking care so hard that I rub my forehead and grind my teeth.

I came here to immerse myself in a sea of no cares, where there are no consequences for any action, and that felt so shitty I tried to kill myself. And now, the moment Rose walked through the door of my hospital room, I'm back in the real world, where everything you do or say is a rock in a pond with consequences and effects, and it maybe feels worse?

Maybe.

I honestly don't know. At least this is real.

"You missed the convention in Barcelona," Rose says. She'd said that when she was texting me, too, before my phone decided to pursue its lifelong dream of deep sea diving. I think she's trying to get back there and overwrite everything that happened instead of that conversation. That sounds like Rose. "They had to cancel your panel. Mr. Stiller is furious. He told the Daily Mail that he doesn't want to work with you anymore. That you're unreliable and self-absorbed and that you aren't worth the constant headache."

"Fuck the Daily Mail," I say, almost cheery. "Ben's cool, though. I mean, he's not wrong." Even I don't think I'm worth the constant headache. Can't blame the guy.

Rose pinches the bridge of her nose. I can tell that she's frustrated with me. Cool, fine. Whatever. I'm used to her being disappointed in me. That doesn't hurt. The only thing that hurts is hurting _her_ , and if she's annoyed, she's not bruised. "Dave," she says, and she speaks real slow like she's explaining something complicated to an especially stupid kid. "I think you may be underestimating how crucial Ben is to your success as a director. You enjoy a special status among your kind, where you're as much of a superstar as the actors you work with, but people are still expecting you to provide certain faces. You need to call him and apologize before he actually cuts ties."

It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say.

I look at her like she's gone crazy. Because, uh, she one hundred percent fucking has. What the actual fuck is happening, right now? "Rose," I say, "I'm not making any more movies."

She actually looks surprised. Which I'm sure makes me look surprised in turn, but _really_? Is this _really_ some kind of shocker, here?

"I mean," I say, but even trying to explain it is just ludicrous, so I start laughing. I sound bitter and hollow and every bark of laughter seems to suck the life out of Rose and I feel bad for that, sure, but what the fuck. "Dude," I say. "Civilization is fucking over. And I don't even fucking care! Do you understand just how fucking deep that well goes? Why -- what the fuck -- in what _universe_ do you think I want to make a bunch of bullshit, meaningless, post-irony garbage movies?"

"It's what you love," Rose says.

I lean back and close my eyes. "God," I say. "God, you have no idea how depressingly accurate that is. My shitty fucking movies are a monument to how clever I think I am, and you're right, I guess. That's what I love." I shake my head. I squeeze my eyes because I'm not going to fucking cry, are you kidding me. Not in front of Rose. I fucking refuse. "Nothing matters," I say.

The words echo in the room. They seem to repeat every time my heart monitor beeps. They float between us, threading around us, pulling us both closer together and further apart. They're the pure unadulterated truth, and they bring me back to the night before I left New York. Rose's eyes reflecting the light from the TV. _The world ended today. We're just watching its death throes._

_So nothing matters,_ I'd said, and felt all the layers of shit I'd been wrapping around myself since Foster Camp in 1981 spool away and I'd realized just how empty and meaningless everything was. Everything except Rose.

So I'd kissed her, because nothing mattered.

"It was a mistake," Rose says, finally breaking the spell of my proclamation. "Neither of us were in any position to consent to anything. You'd seen me seizure. I'd had a vision. And we were both confronting not only our mortality, but the mortality of the entire human species. Realizing how alone we were in the world, but for one another."

I don't want to talk about this. I can't talk about this. I'd kissed _her_ , knowing that Rose was still just as gay as she had been before the world had ended. Knowing that it couldn't do anything but destroy what we had. Just because she hadn't stopped me didn't mean that _I_ wasn't the one who had poisoned the only real thing in either of our lives.

I can't talk about this. I just can't.

"How did you even get here?" I ask. My voice is hoarse and it hurts to talk around the lump in my throat, but hey, I get the words out. That's a good running start toward changing the subject and never talking about that night.

Rose looks away. She wants to talk about it so badly. That's how Rose wants to handle every situation: talk about it. Let's talk about it. Let's write an extremely wordy, impenetrable blog about it. Let's channel our emotions into a new novel about it. Let's beat these emotions into submission by sheer extensive cataloguing of them. I don't care what she says, that shit doesn't work.

"Your intentions were more or less clear," she says. Her voice is strained; she doesn't want to talk about this. Well, tough luck. I don't want to even be here and I'm taking that one for the team. "I called every hospital in a day's flight range of Barcelona and asked them to contact me if a Dave Strider or Michael Johnson was admitted. I got more than one call, but I narrowed it down by checking registries at nearby hotels. Then I caught a redeye."

"Shocked none of my handlers have found me yet," I mutter. I don't want to see a single one of them.

"Most of them don't know your birth name."

Fair enough.

There's another long silence. Rose still wants to talk about what happened in New York. I would honestly rather chop off my dick. She knows that if she lets it go, we might never talk about it. And in her mind, if we never talk about it, we never _fix_ it. She's too optimistic. If she really sits down and thinks about it, she'll figure out that there's no fixing shit. It's truly fucking broke.

"You can't just give up, Dave," she says quietly. "Didn't I tell you as much? The Empress will do what she will and it can't be stopped, but I truly don't think that my vision was one without any hope. I saw flashes of things. We have roles to play. _You_ have a role to play."

What if I don't care? I don't say it outloud. It would cut her. Rose cares a whole lot about roles and purposes and destinies. 

She waits for me to respond, and when she realizes that I'm not going to say dick, her eyes harden and I think I see a glimmer in them. "Fine. Forget the Empress. Forget the future. Forget the human race. You're a selfish fucking idiot. Yes, fine! Things between us are _complicated_ , right now. Do you not understand that I'd still do anything for you? Do you know where _I_ would be, if all of this" -- she indicates the room -- "had _succeeded_? You're the only thing _alive_ that has any meaning to me, Dave! Which you _know_! Find someone, you say. All noble. As if I haven't tried. As if you don't know that there's a hole in me that I've never been able to fill. Are you _really_ so eager to leave me here to face the end _alone_?"

This time, I care.

I swallow hard. Again. Again. I won't cry. I am not going to fucking cry, grow _up_ , Strider. But I can't stop, because Rose's words keep running through my head, and I hate that I've hurt her, I hate that I've been so selfish, and more than anything else, I hate that I can't even quit this shitty life without fucking everything else and ruining things for the only person who matters to me.

"Please don't die, Dave," Rose says. "Please. Please don't leave me."

I wipe away my tears. I grind my jaw, and I hate that she's doing this to me, but I nod.

We just kind of leave it like that. She stands there, crying silently, and I'm laying in my bed, listening to my heart beep, trying not to fucking lose my shit. If I let myself go, I think I could cry like I haven't cried since I was, like, nine. Just let it rip through me and tear me up and leave me hollowed out and aching and fuzzy with endorphins and weak. But I don't let myself go.

It's pretty fucked up, isn't it? That a guy will try to die but be afraid to cry.

I'm a real piece of work.

By this point, I'm pretty sure that Karkat Vantas is long gone. I'm trying not to think about it too hard. I'm trying not to let it hurt like a corkscrew in my fucking heart, because I don't even know him. Rose put together more information about the kid in a once-over than I managed in all of my lurid shit with him at the discreet hotel. How can you feel abandoned by a person you know absolutely nothing about?

But I can't help it. When he slinks back in through the door, my heart skips a beat.

Rose snaps into action. I've always loved the way that she can bury any negative emotion under the sheer weight of superiority, and I'd recognize the look she gives Karkat anywhere, because I've been on the ass end of it plenty of times.

"This is what I'm going to offer you," Rose says, all prim authority. "Dave lives in Los Angeles, and I live in upstate New York. There are... reasons why it isn't in his best interests for me to keep an eye on him. And I'm sure you'd agree that he does, in fact, need an eye."

Karkat shrugs. "If you don't want him finishing the job, that sure does seem fucking obvious." There's uncertainty on his face. He doesn't know where Rose is going with this, but I think I do, and I'm honestly flat out terrified.

"He's in a fragile state right now. I think it would do him harm to be around his usual cohorts. But he needs watching, and I can't provide it. I'll pay you five thousand USD a month off the books to stay with him. I'll also exploit my contacts to leverage a quick path to legal immigration for you, once this... situation has stabilized."

I don't want this. The absolute last thing I want is someone else in my life paid to pretend to care about me, and that's absolutely the tip of the iceberg. Has Rose really not guessed how he and I met one another? Sure, he doesn't put off any hooker vibes in normal clothes and a fresh face, but he's clearly not eighteen and I'm clearly way off the deep end. Age of consent in Spain might be thirteen, but back home in Cali, it's eighteen. Dave Strider, fresh off some covered up suicide attempt, swearing off movies, going all hermit, and keeping some... third world houseboy? The narrative fucking writes itself. No way. No fucking way.

And the alternative is flying home and leaving him here.

The thought curdles my insides like spoiled milk. It makes me dizzy with a sense of pure wrongness, makes my heart ache and my soul recoil.

Karkat is looking at me, searching for some signal, and all I can do is look back, caught between horror and longing. I don't want Rose to pay this kid to babysit me. And if he refuses to do it, because not even fat cash and a free ride to the land of the free can make being around me palatable, I'm not sure I'll be able to go on.

"Why the fuck do you even think he'll put up with me being there?" Karkat asks.

"Because Dave is almost samurai-esque in his concept of loyalty and debts. And you saved his life."

I watch Karkat chew on that. I shake my head faintly. Samurai? Fucking please. Laying it on a little thick there, Rose. Honour and duty and devotion to a cause -- I have none of that. That's not me, I'm not that guy. I'm the guy who needs a constant stream of fast cars, willing partners, and interesting drugs paraded in front of me so that I don't look too hard into my own abyss and go postal.

But Karkat is worrying at his bottom lip (and fuck me, it's cute) and giving Rose a considering look. "What..." he closes his mouth. He thinks for a second. "What do I have to... do?"

This is definitely the moment where Rose figures out that I picked this kid up fully intending to fuck him. I brace for it, the horror in her eyes as she turns and looks at me and our relationship is well and truly shattered for good. But somehow, she doesn't. Somehow, she takes the question at face value. "Only the one thing. Just be around him and make sure that he doesn't..." Her mouth twists and she glances away.

Rose never flinches. It's a punch right in the heart that I've done this to her.

Karkat glowers. "I'm not like -- I'm not doing shit, I'm not cleaning up or answering his phones or scrubbing floors. Nothing like that, fuck that. No way."

"You won't have to," Rose promises. "I can swear it."

"So I just watch him and collect cheques? That simple?"

"That simple," Rose says, and then her eyes harden. "But let me make this clear -- if I ever catch you selling drugs to him, you'll be deported in no time."

God. She really thinks that he's a dealer, not a hooker. Rose, come on. You're smarter than this. In a way, it's kind of flattering that she thinks I'm above soliciting an underage kid.

"That's not going to be an issue," Karkat grumbles, and I can tell he's really thinking about it.

Just say no, I want to say. I don't even want you there. But I can't. The words are piled up in my chest like traffic congestion, and I have to admit that I really just want him to say yes. Because there's just something about him, and I can't stand the thought of him just sliding back into the seven billion doomed lives on this planet and vanishing forever.

Karkat folds his arms. He squares his stance. He clenches his jaw. "Whatever," he says, a little too loud. "Fine. I'm not a fucking numbskull, turning down easy money. But the second I'm doing _anything_ other than watching this catastrophic disaster of a human being --" he jerks his thumb at me "-- I'm fucking out, got it?"

"I think I can agree to those terms," Rose says, extending a hand, and Karkat shakes it.

I realize that I haven't said a word since Rose started making this ludicrous offer, that they're deciding on my life right over my head and I can't even work up the fake-anger enough to be surly about it. I run a hand through my hair. Greasy as fuck. Whatever. Who cares.

Nothing matters.

"Rad," I say.


	6. It Was Something To Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

An hour later, I'm discharged.

The doctor hovers around us while Rose and I sign a bunch of papers. He expresses his very fluttery disapproval. It's awkward as fuck and I try to tune out my brain so that I can't translate his frantic Catalan quick enough to really understand him. Something, something, suicide watch. Something, something, mental health professional. Something, something, overnight observation.

Rose does what Rose does and takes total control of the situation. She puts on that tone I remember from under the tree at Foster Camp and it impresses the doctor every bit as much as it impressed me. He stops flailing and listens to what she's saying in her very precise Catalan and she totally soothes the wild beast. Good job, Rose, you're a star. We get out of the hospital.

Rose hails a taxi, and we all cram into the backseat. Rose and I are too aware of how we don't want to touch one another, so Karkat ends up in the middle. He's pressed up against me, our legs smashed together. I can feel his body heat. Every time he breathes, his ribcage expands a bit. I'm way, way too aware of him and of how we'd kissed in the hotel room. His ass had been like two bags stuffed full of pudding in my hands. I clear my throat and stare out the window. Ibiza looks depressingly G-rated in the harsh light of day.

The Swedish hotties are still absent from my rooms, which is nice, because Rose would have tore a strip off me. Rose thinks the right of a prostitute to sell their body is sacrosanct but the customer is a piece of shit. To her this isn't a contradiction and she's talked circles around me so many times that I know deep down I agree, because my convictions are at best loose and her rhetoric is at worst bulletproof.

Rose starts packing my bag, and that's when things get weird again.

My head is still ringing with her impassioned plea for me not to kill myself, but what happened between us in New York is never far from my mind. I can tell it isn't far from hers, either, because when she finds a pair of my boxers under the table, she kind of blanks out. She just stares down at them, and her lips part a little bit. There's a mechanical clock on one wall, all fancy and old school, and it ticks and ticks and ticks for longer than I'm able to count before Rose's head snaps up and her ponytail swings.

"Pack your own bags," she snaps. "I'll be back."

And then she sweeps out of the room like a queen. A queen pretending that she isn't running from a riot that wants her head and almost managing to be convincing.

God. Poor Rose.

I trudge over and pick up the boxers myself. I'd thrown them in a striptease for the Swedes. Looking back, that's a really fucking embarrassing thing I did, wow. I was paying them to be there and I think they want to see me take my clothes off? I imagine them snorting to one another after I vanished and rolling their eyes. Fucking Americans, they'd say.

Yep, that's me.

Karkat hasn't moved from his position at the door. I feel his eyes on me, studying me closely as I move around the room, gathering all the things that flew to the winds of my squalorly living. If my math is right, I've only been in Ibiza for five days, and only stayed at this hotel for three of them. So it's frankly amazing I managed to fuck the place up this bad. Karkat's probably judging me for this shit. Imagining a dark future where he's the one fishing my waistcoat out from under a couch.

I try my best to just ignore him, but I've never been good at being watched. There's a huge difference between performing for a crowd, which I'm frankly amazing at, and being closely observed doing normal daily shit, which is basically the worst thing I can imagine. The difference is that I can turn on the Dave Strider charm and hide behind my signature smirk and aviators when I'm putting on a show. When I'm just me being me, all I can think of is how exposed I am.

The silence goes on for so long, I'm genuinely fucking surprised when Karkat finally talks.

"I'm not going to fuck you," he says. His tone is belligerent, like he's coming out of the gate with his dukes up, expecting a fight.

What I should do is be cool and explain that it was a huge mistake of me to pick him up in the first place and that the new position Rose had arranged us into would make trying anything even less appropriate than it already was, if _anything_ can be less appropriate than a thirty-six year old man soliciting a teenager. But also, I'm an asshole, and he's clearly looking for a fight, and as I have proven in the last week, I have no self control.

"Wow," I say, putting on my condescending piece of shit voice, "but I paid all that money and didn't get dick. Or ass, I guess, I wasn't really looking for dick."

"Fuck you," he spits, eyes flashing. God damn, too easy.

I shake my head and roll a pair of jeans. I can't even remember wearing jeans since I landed here, huh. Maybe I'd worn jeans on the plane? Fuck, everything is such a blur. "I mean, I gave you a grand and then tipped you like four-hundred percent for jack shit on top of that! Come on, Kitkat. You won't even blow me?"

"Don't fucking call me that, you absolutely insufferable piece of human feces."

"Okay, okay. Fine. A solid handie and we'll call it even."

"Go to hell!" Karkat actually puts his fists up like we're going to come to blows over this, his brow all pulled down over those big brown eyes, and I can't help it. I laugh and he glares and it makes me laugh more. "Stop that!" he snaps. "Cut it the fuck out! This is serious, this is fucking serious! I'm not going to the States just to be your kept boy, okay? Stop laughing! Listen to me! I won't do it, I fucking won't! If I'm just going to fuck assholes in tacky clothes for money, I'll do it here on my own terms. And you know what? We're even as _fuck_! No one has ever been more even! Fuck it, if anything, you owe _me_! I'd consider five thousand a pretty solid first payment for me to save your _fucking_ life!" He stares at me and his eyes go a little wild. " _Stop laughing_!"

I stop laughing.

I shake my head and go back to my packing, chuckling despite myself. Wow, he sure is easy to rile up. I feel a little guilty because I think I hit a real nerve there and, also, come the fuck on Strider, he's seventeen at the most and the thought of him being sexually available to a guy my age for room and board and citizenship actually isn't even a little bit funny. But it's not his situation that I'm laughing at, it's his pure indignance. I can't help it. That _is_ funny.

Yeah, sup, I'm a dick. What's new?

"Don't worry," I say, and I try to sound soothing and sincere. I think I sound like a patronizing asshole. Sincerity has never looked good on me. "For one thing, even I know that the power imbalance has shifted way, way too far for even me to put my dick in it." I sigh. "But more importantly, I... Rose can't know I picked you up. Rose can't ever fucking know. I mean, you've got to understand. Rose knows _everything_. I dodged like fifty bullets that she thought you were my dealer, right? The odds are currently at something like negative ten percent that I got away with this. And if I so much as touch you ever again, they drop astronomically."

Sincerity looks fake and dickish on me, but honesty is honesty and that was pretty fucking honest, so when I shoot a look over my shoulder at Karkat, he looks pretty convinced and no longer is looking like he wants to get into fisticuffs with me.

"Oh," he says, when he catches me looking. I see the wheels in his head cranking around. "I should tell her," he says, and a little wicked smile touches his mouth. "Shit, that would fuck you up. Fuck." He laughs under his breath.

I try not to show that I'm kind of about to piss myself and I shrug. "Fine, sure," I say, and go back to what I was doing. "You do that, but she's definitely going to leave your ass here if she thinks I would fuck it."

I would fuck it, drop of a hat. No, cut that out. New day, new Dave. Dave that doesn't get fresh with kids. Better Dave, really. We've reached the next level of Dave. Let's strive to maintain this superior form of Dave.

"I guess," Karkat says. He doesn't sound too disappointed, which is a relief. He wasn't thinking about it, really. He was just fucking with me. Which, first of all, I deserve. And secondly, kind of makes me grin. I like people who fuck with me. Nobody will, except Rose.

"Is she your sister, or something?" Karkat asks.

I snort. "Definitely 'or something,'" I say firmly.

"Oh. Sorry. I just -- fuck, really? You guys have, like, the _exact_ same nose. That's just fucking weird."

As a kid, I'd wished with all my heart that Rose was my sister. After Foster Camp had ended, I'd gotten home and I'd laid in my shitty cot while the other kids whispered in the dark. It was hot as fuck, so hot sweat ran down my scalp, and I'd stared up at the ceiling that my foster mom had actually bothered to take the time to stick those glow in the dark stars all over. I'd traced patterns in the stars and missed Rose so badly that it ached inside of me. And I thought about how unfair it was that there were so many kids out there with actual families who complained because their dad was too strict or their mom didn't let them watch TV during dinner. And fought with their siblings all the time. Real family, and they just took it for granted. Didn't they know how lucky they were, having a place to belong?

Knowing Rose was out there, across the continent, made it all so much worse, somehow. It wasn't fair that fate or destiny or all those things Rose liked to talk about had given us separate lives, apart from one another, and given us nothing of our own. Rose and I should be a family. I deserved to have that.

It had been a long, long fucking time since I'd thought about that. These days, and for the twenty years that had come before them, I had definitely not wanted Rose to be my sister. I'd wanted something else entirely.

"Did I say something wrong?" Karkat asks, and I try to laugh it off.

"Yeah, kinda. I've got a thing for her."

"Oh," he says. I can tell he's surprised that I picked him up, in that case. Score another for the pure ninja shock power of bisexuality.

"Yeah, but she's fucking gay as hell and isn't into it but I'm like, incapable of getting the fuck over it, and it's a whole thing."

"Oh," he says again. I can tell that he's looking for something helpful to say, which is kind of cool of him, because if he wanted to be a douche about it he could absolutely wreck my shit. I think that he's actually not an asshole. He's just really defensive and lashes out whenever he thinks there's even the possibility that someone is going to fuck with him. Pre-emptive attacks.

"It's cool, don't worry about it," I say. "Like I said, it's a whole thing. Not really news. I deal, more or less, mostly." This is a sentence that would have been barely true a week ago and is a fat fucking lie today, but I feel like if I don't say it it's going to become a _Thing_ and frankly I have enough _Things_ in my life.

My life.

I've spent every second since I woke up in the hospital trying not to think about my life, just low key pushing it down in the back of my head every second. Right now, life isn't torture. I'm not post-credits, anymore, but this is all still in-between. Commercial break? I don't know, metaphor goes here. It's like as long as I'm in Ibiza where I don't know anybody, it's manageable.

LA is waiting for me, waiting for me and Karkat, both, now, I guess. And it's chalk fucking full of people who know me and who I know. People I make nice with every day. People I hate, people I fuck around with, people I troll, people who make money off me, people who make money _for_ me, people who help me _manage_ my money, just. So fucking many people. I honestly can't say for sure whether I care if any of them live or die, and I think they mostly feel the same way about me.

Me as a person, that is. God knows, everyone would be mourning the loss of SB&HJ4, which I've built up in interviews as my most brilliantly stupid Emperor's New Clothes yet, and I actually have zero ideas for. I vaguely entertain the idea of doing a really serious dark and gritty psychological drama, marketing it as another one of my shitflicks, and seeing how long it takes the viewing public to catch on and how they interpret it. Eh. It's a fun idea, but I don't really want to make that movie. God knows if I tried to make something good, even as a joke, everyone would actually just use it to realize that I can't actually make movies for dick.

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I fish it out.

TT: Dave?   
TG: hey   
TT: How are you and Karkat?   
TG: were cool. i killed him and am wearing his skin as a suit so thats going well.   
TT: That isn't even a little bit funny. You're experiencing something that is very close to an actual psychotic break from reality. Joking about doing harm to yourself or others is in extremely bad taste right now.   
TG: haha   
TG: okay sorry i guess mom i will take my humour elsewhere   
TT: That's beyond unfair.   
TT: I've always appreciated your sense of humour and you're perfectly aware of that.   
TT: Do you not understand that you can't treat this situation like you'd treat any other?   
TT: I   
TT: Ugh   
TT: This is enormously stupid and I actually may be overreacting. I honestly can't tell. You've run me through the fucking wringer, Dave.

I look down at my phone. I chew at my upper lip, an old habit from when I was a kid, and I sigh.

"Something wrong?" Karkat asks.

"Yeah," I say. "I'm a fucking dickhole, what else is new."

"Well," Karkat says, sounding a bit smug, "I'm not going to disagree."

TG: yeah i know   
TG: sorry i just   
TG: whatever   
TG: sorry   
TT: That's not...   
TT: Oh, Dave.   
TT: This is exactly why Karkat is necessary. You need someone to be at your side and it can't be me. It just can't.   
TG: yeah   
TG: i get it i mean i fucked everything up   
TT: You didn't fuck everything up. I'm every bit as responsible for what happened as you are.   
TG: yeah no i still dont want to talk about that so dont get all up on my dick

I groan the second after I send that one. Someday I will fucking learn to pay attention to how the things I'm saying can sound.

"What?" Karkat asks, and I'm starting to think that he might be kind of a nosy little prick.

"I'm stupid," I say.

"Cool," Karkat agrees. I've really got to stop leaning into this shit with him, fuck.

TG: orrrr some other less loaded elements of my anatomy sure whatever lets pretend i didnt say that   
TG: fuck   
TG: look   
TG: im just saying that i get it i guess and i know why the flight home has to be the last time we see one another for a while   
TT: Yes, about that.   
TT: That's actually why I'm texting, Dave.   
TT: I just don't think I can be physically around you at all, right now. And I don't think that you should be physically around me, either.

Oh.

TT: I've chartered a private jet to direct fly you and Karkat right to Ontario airport. There will be a car waiting for you outside to drive you to your estate.   
TT: I thought it would be best to avoid LAX so that we can keep this as anonymous as possible. As ironic as this is, you might want to not wear sunglasses. It may help conceal your identity.   
TT: I've arranged a phone for Karkat. That will be waiting in the car, as well. My number will be in the contacts and I would prefer if he would call me immediately.   
TT: I want very much for him to stay in close touch with me.   
TT: I think it will help me track your progress.    
TT: You tend to hide what you're feeling or thinking quite well, even from me.   
TT: It's important to me to know that you're doing all right.   
TT: ...   
TT: Dave?

I reach up and angrily wipe the traitorous tear that slipped out of my eye. Fuck you, tear. I don't fucking cry.

TG: ok so hold up let me get this straight   
TG: you lay this fucking mayonnaise level thick and nasty guilt trip on me   
TG: oh no dave dont die how can i live without you think about me how can i go on in this dying apocalyptic world without you here   
TG: and im like whatever ok lets live because rose wants me to live   
TG: and then like fucking three hours later youre telling me like   
TG: oh nm   
TG: you just fly out to the worst place on earth with your teenage babysitter while i go do my own thing and we dont even fucking see each other or fucking speak or like   
TG: ????   
TG: is this for fucking real right now???????   
TT: Dave...   
TG: dude like   
TG: this cannot be an actual thing that is happening   
TT: Dave. Listen.   
TG: you pay for a fucking private jet so you dont have to sit next to me in first class for ten hours like   
TG: holy shit   
TG: you must really hate me   
TT: I don't hate you!   
TT: I could never, ever hate you!   
TT: I love you so much it hurts!   
TT: You keep talking about how you ruined things, how you made a mess of everything. How do you think that I feel?   
TT: The only reason you and I aren't married and living the perfect life that you've always wanted is because of me!   
TT: And after I'd done that to you, condemned you to a life of loneliness, I couldn't do the absolute minimum and tell you no when in a moment of weakness I needed to feel something?   
TT: None of this is your fault!   
TT: All of it is my fault!   
TT: And if I'm around you right now the guilt is going to swallow me whole, and you'll be the one fishing me out of my attempt to end it!   
TT: Do you understand? This isn't about you! You did nothing wrong. It's me. It's been me from the start and that's all I've wanted to say about what happened.

I stare down at my phone. Karkat isn't saying anything, bless him. I feel like I'm going to be sick, honestly, because it's beyond unfair that Rose is blaming herself for this. The irony isn't lost on me, the master of all things ironic. I feel guilty because I think it's my fault that Rose feels guilty because Rose thinks it's her fault. Goddamn. That's almost beautiful in its operatic shittiness.

TG: sorry   
TT: Please don't be sorry.   
TG: no just like   
TG: sorry im so fucking self absorbed i guess   
TT: Dave, all I want right now is for you to be okay.   
TT: All right?   
TT: We have so much ahead of us and you need this time to heal and recover and find out who you want to be and what you want to do.   
TT: And I need to give you that time.   
TT: And, honestly, to take some for myself.   
TT: My week might not have been quite as bad as yours, but I think a judge would have a difficult time ruling.   
TG: haha   
TG: yeah thats true   
TG: should let karkat judge   
TG: winner treats loser to dinner when we see each other again   
TG: wait though but which one of us is the winner and which one is the loser   
TG: let me think about this   
TT: I love you very much, Dave. The jet leaves at 11PM, which is after the sane people go to sleep, but before this island rolls over and shows its vile, neon-coated underbelly to the moon.   
TG: you know im not the pulitzer committee right   
TT: Hush.   
TT: You'll be all right?

I think about it.

TG: yeah maybe   
TT: Well, I suppose I'll take that.   
TT: Goodbye, Dave. Let's be sure to keep in touch in the usual long-distance ways, please?   
TG: yeah ok   
TG: see you when its time to stand against an alien empress who wants to genocide all humanity i guess

She doesn't reply again. I sigh and slip my phone back into my pocket. Well, that's that, I guess. Me and Rose are back to the way it was when we were kids: lots of correspondence, no sharing the same physical location. Shit, makes me nostalgic for those truly asstastic days.

"That was definitely her," Karkat says. "Is she coming back up to subject herself to your awful fucking personality again?"

"Nope," I say. "She's sending us home on a private jet so she doesn't have to be around my awful fucking personality a second longer than strictly necessary."

"...oh," he says. I think he feels a bit bad, though it's hard to tell when he follows it right up with: "Well, shit. I'm so fucking jealous of her right now I could puke!"

"Yeah, yeah," I roll my eyes. I zip my bag shut and turn around so I can sit on it. Karkat has finally relaxed a bit and is leaning against the wall, arms folded, shoulders slouched. He's so shrouded in that hoodie of his, and for a second, something pricks at my memory again.

Turns out, meeting someone while high on a crazy cocktail of drugs and experiencing, in Rose's armchair expertise, a psychotic break, leads your brain to malfunction whenever you look right at them. Something tells me that is going to get really annoying if my synapses don't get in order.

"When are we leaving?" Karkat asks.

I check the clock. "Three hours," I say.

Karkat makes a face. "Fuck. What do we do until then?"

I go to make some depressed comment, and then I put a cork in it. I'm going back to real life. It's time to get the smirk and the shades and the Dave Strider charm back so I can hide behind them, or God fucking knows I won't be able to function at all.

So I hold up the channel changer. "I think I can get porn on this thing," I say with a smirk.

"Wow, suck my dick."

"Only if you want."

"Fuck you!"

"Oh, baby, you keep making all these _promises_..."

It feels familiar and comfortable and it feels like shit.


	7. Interlude 2: October, 1984 // You're Judge Johnny Stone from Night Court

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

He'd been sitting in an out of the way alcove and trying to draw when the call came.

"Michael!" his foster mother shouted. As always, she sounded impatient and frustrated. He missed his last foster mother, the one who had put glow in the dark stars on the ceiling of the bedroom he'd shared with the others. But she'd gotten pregnant with her own kid, and she hadn't wanted to take care of a bunch of strays anymore. He and his foster siblings had all gotten rehomed. There were only two of them at this new place, but Dave was pretty sure that neither of them were really wanted. His new foster sister curled her lips and talked about tax breaks. Dave didn't quite understand it, but he thought that he got the basics. These people got something out of them being here that had nothing to do with either of them. They were wanted, but not wanted. Fair enough.

He'd asked them to call him Dave, and they'd looked at him like he was crazy and gone right back to Michael. So he sort of hated them for that alone.

He considered not answering her call. She'd be angry, and maybe do that thing where she gripped him by the shoulders and shook him a bit, but he thought that it might make him feel as if he had some control over the situation. Ignoring her, even if the rebellion didn't amount to anything or last for long, could give him kind of a rush. He liked that.

But,

" _Michael!_ " she echoed herself, and her voice had taken on a whip-crack sharpness. "There's a phone call for you!"

His heart skipped a beat and he scrambled to his feet, leaving his drawings behind. "Coming!" he replied, and scurried to the closest phone.

No one ever called for him. About him, sure. He understood from his foster sister that The System was required to check in on them. Going through the motions, she said in her knowing voice. But _for_ him? Only one person ever dialed their number hoping to talk _to_ Michael/Dave Johnson/Strider.

He picked up the receiver. "Hello?" he spoke breathlessly.

"Hello, Dave." Rose's perfectly moderated voice came through the receiver, and a ball of knotted snakes in his stomach that he hadn't even really known was there uncoiled and eased and he felt a sense of wellness bubble up, spreading to his fingers and toes.

His foster mother sighed. "Twenty minutes, Michael," she said firmly. "I'm expecting a phone call and I don't want you tying up the line."

There was a click as she hung up.

"What a bitch," Dave spat, slumping against the wall. "She's the worst. I can't wait until we get shuffled around again. Anybody is better than this."

"I'm sorry about that, Dave. But I'm afraid I can't talk about it. I need you to do something very important."

He stood up straighter. Important? And Rose's voice sounded a bit... frantic? No, that was way too strong a word. Tight around the edges. Frayed a bit. Controlled and calm, but focused and determined.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"I need you to go run out into the street." The way she said it reminded him of the way a 911 operator would talk. Like, panicking a bit inside but trying to keep someone else calm. Him. Trying to keep him calm, because she just told him to run into the road like a crazy person. This was a busy street. Was she crazy? "Right now."

"Um," Dave said. He really didn't want to do that. But Rose sounded so...

"It's so important, Dave. It's the most important thing you can imagine. I'm not even allowed to be making this call right now, but I'm doing it because this matters a whole lot."

Dammit, she sounded so convincing. Shit. He was going to get in _so_ much trouble, if he didn't get killed.

"Why?" he asked. There was a whine at the edge of his voice and he really hated that. He wanted to trust Rose and not be afraid. He wanted to be what she needed him to be. He twisted his hand in the phone cord.

"I don't know," she said, and for the first time, she sounded actually kind of afraid herself. "I just know that there's no hope for our future if you don't do this."

He gulped. He didn't want to. He asked, trying to be calm, "So just... run into the road, and that's it?"

"No. When someone asks if you're okay, you need to tell them exactly this in exactly these words," she took a breath. Recited them.

Dave went over them three times in his head, and then spoke breathily into the receiver. "Okay."

"Don't hang up. I'll be here the whole time. I promise."

That was what bolstered him as he put the phone down on the table and velcroed his sneakers on and crept past his foster mother smoking in the kitchen and make it out the front door. Rose was just on the line, almost like she was right there with him, and he kept reciting that to himself up until the moment when he took a deep breath, barrelled into the busy street, and squealing tires and honking horns made a cacophony of sound around him.

His eyes were tightly closed and his arms were outstretched and he was just waiting for something awful to happen to him, and why had he trusted Rose? Rose had clearly gone crazy! But no one hit him, nothing happened, and then he felt the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Blinking against the harsh sunlight, he squinted at the face that towered above him. 

Well. Not towered. He was hitting some growth spurts and the old man who looked down at him wasn't very tall. Dave shielded his eyes from the sunlight and something seemed to contract a bit, for a second. He knew this old guy, he did. Only he shouldn't be so old. His hair should be jet black, not grey, and his blue eyes should look clear and --

The picture snapped into focus. He'd been wrong -- the man shouldn't be younger. He was supposed to look exactly like this.

"You're on the TV," Dave said, blinking. "You're Judge Johnny Stone from Night Court."

"Son," Johnny Stone said gently, "we've got to get you out of the road, here! You put yourself in a lot of danger."

Dave nodded mutely as cars swerved and honked around them. Johnny Stone held up his hand to traffic and shook his head and they kind of miraculously stopped as the actor lead Dave off the road, back to the sidewalk. The shiney black sedan that had disgorged the tv star pulled off, and Dave suddenly realized that he hadn't delivered Rose's message at all.

Johnny Stone had a hand gently resting against Dave's back, and Dave danced a few steps ahead, up the walk, and turned around. Rose was trusting him, and he didn't understand her message at _all_ , but she promised she'd be with him and he promised he'd do this thing she thought was so important. He took a deep breath and blurted: "You need to stay a Crocker!"

The old man blinked, and then something twisted at his lips.

Dave forged on. "I know you feel guilty that you didn't go with your sister. I know that you were too scared to leave after Halley died. And I know that now you're worried about your son and if he should grow up in this family and if you did the right thing. But you _have_ to stay with the Crocker family. He won't grow up the way you want him otherwise."

Johnny Stone looked down at him. His clouded blue eyes were shining a little. Was he going to cry? Geez, Dave hoped not. He didn't want a bigtime tv star crying on the front walk. That felt really awkward.

"Why do you say all of that, son?" Judge Stone asked. Dave knew he wasn't actually a judge and his name probably wasn't actually Johnny Stone, but all he could see was the funny guy from the TV.

"Uh," Dave said, and rubbed at his nose to hide his embarrassment. "I don't know? Someone just told me that I had to say it."

Johnny's eyes narrowed and he blinked away the tears he hadn't quite shed. "Who?" he asked, and an edge crept into his voice. "What did she look like?"

"No, it was, um," Dave swallowed hard. Had he done something wrong? Was he allowed to tell? He had to tell the truth. A lie could only make it worse. "It was just a friend of mine. Rose. It was just Rose. She's my age. She's blonde and likes to wear headbands. It's nothing. She just told me it was important that you hear it."

The front door burst open and Dave's foster mother boiled down the front steps. "Michael!" she screamed. She actually sounded a bit worried, which lit a tiny coal of warmth in Dave's belly, but mostly she sounded furious. "You stupid boy, what did you do? You left the phone off the hook and the neighbour called over and all that ruckus in the road was because of you -- what's gotten into you?"

He was definitely about to get the shakes, if not a whole lot worse. And Rose was gone. For some reason, Dave sought Judge Stone. He gave him a desperate look. Which was stupid. He was just being dumb. Why would a bigtime TV star do anything to save him?

But Johnny Stone put a hand on Dave's shoulder and fixed his foster mother with a big, charming grin. "Hello, there, ma'am!" he said, all jovial and happy. His voice was this reedy sort of tenor that seemed a lot goofier than it ever had on TV. Dave liked it. "Your son here just helped me out of a scrape! My driver was hopelessly lost!"

Even Dave could see that it was a really damn terrible explanation. Dave had run through a lane of traffic and threw himself in front of Judge Johnny Stone's black sedan to... give directions?

"He isn't my son," she said testily. "And do you mean to tell me that..." Her eyes scanned their visitor, and then Dave's transgression was forgotten. "Aw, hell!" She darted forward and her hand flew to her mouth. "God be _good_ , you're Johnny Crocker!"

Just like that, the dumb inconsistent illogical story was forgotten. Somehow, against all reasonable logical reality, the actor was easily coaxed into staying for supper, bought them all popsicles when the truck went by, and after he left, it was like Dave's big dumb roadrush had never happened. His foster mother called everyone she knew to tell them that _Johnny fucking Crocker_ had told her that she made the best biscuits and gravy he'd had the whole time he was in Texas. Dave eavesdropped and he couldn't stop thinking about Johnny Crocker and, more importantly, about Rose.

He kept to himself, even when his foster sister tried to pull him into a conversation about what had really happened. They weren't that close, which she proved when she got annoyed at him holding back and stole his popsicle, which hurt a bit, but whatever. She could go to hell. After everyone had fallen asleep, Dave crept down to the living room. He pulled the phone as far as he could out the back door and onto the porch, curling into a corner with the receiver between his shoulder and ear.

Rose answered on the first ring.

"Are you all right?" she asked in a rush. She actually sounded really worried. Dave felt warmth spread through him, all the way. She actually cared.

"Yeah," Dave said, whispering loudly because if anyone caught him making a long distance call, he was going to be deep in the shit. "Nobody hit me. Not even the bitch."

"I wish you wouldn't use that word," Rose chided. She was speaking quietly, too. It was the foster father, for her, not the mother. She didn't like to talk about it. "It's very demeaning to all women. Some books I've been reading say that language like that is a source of a lot of problems in the world."

"Don't be so sensitive," Dave groaned, but he felt guilty anyway. Rose knew better than he did. He internally promised to maybe stop saying it. At least where she could hear.

"What happened?" Rose asked.

"What do you mean, what happened?"

"I mean, who did you talk to? You didn't get hurt, did you?"

Cicadas and crickets sang around him as Dave took a second to actually process what she was saying. And then, his voice squeaking a bit, he barked into the receiver, "You don't _know_?"

"No," she said. "I haven't a clue."

"Oh my god, Rose!" he gasped. "You sent me into traffic and almost got my hide tanned by the -- by _her_ , and you didn't even know why? I thought you somehow had heard from somewhere that it was Johnny Crocker!"

"It was Johnny Crocker?" Rose asked. She actually sounded kind of excited. "From _Night Court_? Oh, wow!"

"If you didn't know, what was that even about?"

Rose sighed, and then the line went silent. He could hear her breathing, and himself breathing, amplified by the phone. He worked his pinky finger between the coils of the cord and tried to see how far down he could get it. And then he got bored. "Rose?"

"I don't know," Rose said, and he could hear her frustration in her voice. She was confused and she hated being confused. She wanted to know all the answers. "I don't understand what happened. It was just like this... this surge of knowledge. That I had to call you and I had to tell you to do and say that, or it was lost."

" _What_ was lost?" Dave demanded.

"Everything," Rose said softly.

They sat in silence again. Dave slapped a mosquito on his elbow and was really aware of how much these dumb silent seconds were costing him. He was definitely going to get his hide tanned when the phone bill came in.

"So," he said finally, testing the syllables on his tongue. "Do you, like... have ESP or something?"

"Maybe?" Rose said. She laughed quietly. "I don't think so. I wish I did. That would be very dramatic, don't you think? It would be like something from one of my books. I wish I lived in a world where I had ESP. No, I don't think it's so exciting. I think... I think..."

Another long silence.

"Rose?" he said.

"I don't know," she said. For the first time since they'd met, she sounded actually really lost and confused. It sounded wrong on her. Lost and confused was his territory. "I really don't know."

"So..." Dave craned his neck to try and look up at the stars, but the light pollution was just too bad. He missed Foster Camp. This family didn't want to pay for him to go. It could be years before he saw Rose or the stars again. "So what did it even do? Telling him all of that?"

"I don't know," Rose repeated, and then quietly, laughed. "Saved the world, maybe?"

The next day, Johnny Crocker was on the news. He said that while acting and comedy were still his primary goals, he was accepting a position in lower management at his mother's company. Just on the side. To make a future in the Crocker name for his son.

Dave watched it, his brow furrowed.

Part of him still couldn't help but think that Johnny should be a lot younger.


	8. I'm Living Out In LA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

I check the coffee machine. It's gurgling like it's going through it's death throes, but still no coffee. I tap my foot. I fold my arms. My clothes are comfy as fuck, so I run my hands down my torso and squirm a bit against the fabric. What the fuck am I wearing? Dolce?

My phone buzzes. I fish it out of my pocket.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

CG: DAVE? WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO?  
CG: I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST LEFT. IT'S FUCKING FREEZING IN HERE. MY WALKPODS ARE NUMB.  
CG: LOOK.  
CG: LOOK IF YOU'RE REGRETTING EVERYTHING THAT'S FUCKING FINE, OKAY, BUT I HOPE YOU'LL ACTUALLY SAY IT TO MY FACE INSTEAD OF JUST FUCKING CRAWLING OFF INTO THE WOODS LIKE SOME WOUNDED BARKBEAST. LIKE, I THINK I'VE EARNED THAT MUCH AT LEAST?

I have no idea who this is or what's going on, but my thumbs are already flying across the keyboard. It's too small. Shit. Is that an iPhone 3? Damn. That's too recent to be ironic or retro and too outdated to be anything else so it's just tacky as fuck. Note to self, pick up an iPhone 4 at earliest convenience.

TG: jesus  
TG: fuck dude  
TG: shits cool  
TG: shits mega way cool dont get yourself in a knot  
TG: im in the common room everything is chill  
TG: beyond chill  
TG: next level chill  
CG: OH.  
CG: OKAY.  
CG: SORRY. I JUST -- UM, YEAH. I JUST PANICKED FOR A SECOND THERE.  
CG: AFTER, UH, THAT. AND I WAKE UP AND YOU'RE JUST FUCKING *GONE* AND I JUST FLIPPED I GUESS?  
TG: dude for real its all good  
TG: better than good  
TG: its fucking dope as balls  
TG: i woke up and was groggy as fuck you were zonked right out and you know i hate waking you up when you actually manage to get some sleep  
TG: i just ducked out to get some coffee  
TG: taking a bite out of the groggy  
TG: get it where it lives  
TG: fuckin wreck that grog  
CG: OKAY I FUCKING GET IT, YOU WERE GROGGY AND YOU WANTED COFFEE. LET'S MOVE ON.  
TG: everythings like  
TG: super rad ok  
TG: dont freak out  
TG: cause uh  
TG: that was great  
TG: you were great  
CG: ... REALLY?  
TG: fuck yes

The coffee machine starts spewing the worst smelling coffee I've had touch my nostrils since my ignoble childhood and I glance up from my phone to see it barfing into the cup. I feel a hand on my shoulder and whirl, looking for the source, but there's no one there. Just a dark room humming with machinery. But I swear, someone is touching me again, and I'm shaking.

"Dave."

I look down at the phone.

CG: SO...  
CG: ARE YOU... COMING BACK?

I feel myself smile and go to type something... reassuring? I think? But a crack runs down the -- vision --- dream ------ memory -- and I blink and blink again and Karkat is right in my face and he's got both hands on my shoulders and he's shaking me.

"What the fuck," he says, lips twisted and brow furrowed into a deep scowl. "You sleep like a fucking corpse. Get the hell off your ass, we're here."

I groan and reach up to run a hand through my hair. It's a pleasant surprise to feel it clean and fluffy. Nothing matters, sure, but being filthy had gotten pretty old.

I sit up and Karkat moves back. The jet Rose chartered is classy as balls. She'd been kind enough to leave the minibar intact, and I remember drinking basically the entire thing while Karkat watching disapprovingly from under his bangs. Then I'd chugged two litres of water so I wouldn't wake up puking -- trick from one of my borderline alcoholic foster dads, thanks for the one piece of wisdom you ever gave me, asshole -- and then passed out in my chair like a true rich white person on a transcontinental flight.

I look out a window. Yep. We're definitely here.

A porter helps get our bags -- Karkat only has a tattered backpack -- and the car Rose talked about is waiting for us right on the tarmac. It's a pretty mild day for SoCal, but the asphalt of the tarmac still fucking radiates heat up like it's trying to cook our feet. A normal flight is disgorging its passengers down the runway, and I can tell people are trying to find out who just came out of the nice jet, snapping photos with their phones. I hold up a hand and give my best smirk, just in case someone recognizes me without my shades or one of my suits. Karkat continues to scowl and hustles me toward the car.

It isn't one of my drivers. I'm so grateful it hurts, because I'm not sure I can face anyone I actually know yet. At the same time, I'm weirdly disappointed. There's this sense of dread just coiled up in my gut, and I think maybe it'd calm the fuck down a bit if I actually faced what was coming. Every time the inevitable gets pushed back, the coils get tighter. It's like I'm a wind-up pocket watch and every stay of execution winds me tighter. My gears are grinding and maybe I'll break.

But it's a really fucking nice car.

The AC is going at a nice, even clip, and the seats are leather, and it feels weirdly... good, to slip into the trappings of my normal life. It shouldn't. I had just run the fuck away from this life. I'd literally just tried to _end_ this life. Humans are fucking weird. We're creatures of habit to a fucking dangerous degree.

I sit back in my seat. I see the driver adjust his mirror to look at me and Karkat, but he doesn't ask where we're headed before he starts the car up and we're on the move. Rose has this all sorted. Rose always does.

Karkat finds a box. There are two smaller boxes inside, each with one of our names on them. Karkat hands me mine and sets about getting his own own. It has one of those clear, round, demonically adherent stickers on it, and I amuse myself watching him tear the box open with fingers and teeth like he's a fucking animal. Fucking adorable, in all honesty.

I peel the sticker on mine, like a goddamn adult, and there's a new iPhone 4S inside. Fucking nice. I hadn't upgraded, yet. There's a note.

Dave. Enjoy this shiny new toy built by children in China. You monster.  
All my love.

I snort. But my eyes linger over the words. She typed this note up after everything that had happened, and against all odds, it... actually does make me feel better. I'm still worthy of all Rose's love. That isn't nothing.

I load the thing up. Rose has it all ready to go, complete with my usual password, of course. I start to sync with the cloud. Karkat is looking at his own phone like it's an alien device. He's pressing the screen like he needs to depress an actual button and so forth. It's kind of mesmerizing.

"Never had a phone before?" I ask.

"Shut the fuck up," he replies automatically, and I chuckle. Yeah, fucking bullseye. Rose had identified his accent as Moroccan. Karkat hadn't argued. Did they have cell towers and iPhones in Morocco? Was this like a poor children in Africa situation? It's close enough to Spain to throw a rock across the water, but that doesn't mean dick, really, and I'm definitely fucking white enough to not have a clue.

He raises the phone to his ear.. Who's he -- oh, yeah. I remember what Rose had said. She put her number in his phone. Told me to tell him to ring it. He's calling Rose, right now. I fight down this crazy, stupid surge of jealousy.

I turn to look out the window. We've found some back way off the tarmac and I lean back in my seat and try to enjoy the sight of mountains again. California isn't home. If I'm honest, absolutely nowhere is home. The closest thing is a camp for foster kids in Indiana that's been shut down and paved over for a decade and change, now. But I like the way the San Bernardino Mountains look, and there's some comfort in that.

"H-hello?" Karkat says. He sounds nervous. He shoots me a weird little look and then clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, he's fine."

I grin at him and wave. His brows pull down and he turns bodily away from me.

"Yes. Um, what do you mean 'ostentatious?' ...okay. Okay, that's fine." He sounds almost meek as he takes his orders from Rose. I strain my ears, trying to see if I can hear a tinny thread of her voice, but I get nothing. "What do I tell him? No -- I just mean --" He's swallowing his own words as Rose fills his ear. I can tell he's getting a bit frustrated. "Okay! Okay, fine. Whatever. It's not that complicated." He turns halfway back to me. Looks like he's chewing on a real dilemma, and then seems to make up his mind. He rolls his eyes.

Oh, shit! I laugh with genuine delight. "Rose, your teen suicide watch rolled his eyes at you!" I shout.

"Fuck you!" Karkat snaps at me, blushing deeply, and I cackle. "No! Yes. Yes." His eyes focus on me and there's a gleam of satisfaction in them. "Why yes, he _is_ a fucking inoperable tumour blighting my miserable fucking life! ... Yes. Yes. All right. Okay. Bye." And then he peers at the phone like someone's grandma, trying to figure out how to hang it up.

"She's the best," I say with a sigh. I try to make it come out super sarcastic, but there's a little more sincerity than I'd really like.

Luckily, Karkat doesn't know me well enough to catch it and he just snorts. He seems satisfied that the phone is not currently transmitting what he's saying and tucks it into the pocket of his worn jeans.

They're the same ones he wore at the hospital. I wonder what's actually in his bag. Our taxi had stopped in front of a run down apartment building in a slum before we'd gotten on the plane. He'd been in for about two minutes, tops. Is the backpack just crammed with booty shorts and mesh shirts and a makeup bag? Does he own anything else? A whole bunch more questions shoot off from those like branches and leaves, and I realize there's actually a whole lot to wonder about a teenage hooker from Morocco who ended up in Ibiza and knows perfect English.

I let that stew in my head for a long while. The mountains are beautiful in the background. The city is the city in the foreground. "Hey," I say, breaking the silence. "How old are you, really?"

I'd asked him in the hotel. Not mine. The one he'd taken me to, when I'd still intended to fuck him as one last hurrah. This time, I'm hoping for the truth. Something real.

His gaze flicks my way and he gazes at me from beneath his long, long lashes. Then he looks away. "Seventeen," he says, voice barely a murmur.

I turn it over in my head. I think that it's probably the truth. "When's your birthday?"

Karkat twists to glare at me. "Oh my god," he says. "Do you want to see my fucking birth certificate, too?" And then his eyes narrow. "Or is this about me being _legal_ so you can --?"

"Whoa." I hold up my hands. "This is about me being _curious_! That's all!" I mean, we've already way crossed the line of _morality_ here, and legality doesn't matter so much. He's currently an illegal immigrant, I don't think me fucking him is going to be what breaks the camel's back on this.

Karkat glares at me for a really long time. It starts to get kind of uncomfortable. And then he slumps back. "June 23rd," he says. "1994."

In 1994, I had been nineteen. I had just bought my first car. It had been a 1980 Toyota Corolla. I had driven it all the way from Houston to Massachusetts so I could visit Rose. It was her first year at Harvard. I'd sung along to I Saw the Sign by Ace of Base all the way to Pennsylvania, when the tape deck had eaten the cassette.

So, yeah.

That's how old I am compared to Karkat.

Like, old as balls.

Note to fucking self: please don't fuck this kid.

I get the feeling that he's pretty much over me right now. He's busy with his phone, and I take a second to study his face. He's concentrating really hard. It's like he's learning a completely new skill -- which he is -- and there's something to be said for the way he totally immerses himself in it. I shake myself and look down at my own phone.

My cloud is synced.

There are something like two hundred emails, texts from tons of Hollywood bigwigs, thirty voicemails. I don't want to deal with any of this, fuck, but I page through, keeping my eye open for any sign that rumours of my suicide attempt had hit the news. Nothing. This is the benefit of everyone knowing you under an alias, I guess. Nobody thought to look and see if some asshole named Michael Johnson killed himself in Europe. There _is_ a whole lot of "where the fucking hell are you, Strider," though. My google alerts for myself are just crazy. The article Rose talked about on the Daily Mail is especially illuminating. Ben sure is dragging me through the mud. Whatever. I've earned it.

There's also a news story suggested to me from Time. They got the honour of being the first allowed inside of the Empress's battleship. The report goes on at length in a tone somewhere between confused horror and scholarly excitement about how, despite its titanium shell, the interior seems to be mostly organic. I shudder. I don't want to think about some fish alien with a spaceship made out of mucus right here, right now, destroying earth and humanity and the future and my life.

I shut my phone off -- deal with it later -- and close my eyes.

I swear they're only shut for three seconds, but when I open them again we're cruising down a familiar road lined with palm trees. Everything is green and blue and ostentatious. The people walking are thin, gorgeous, stylish and blonde. When I glance at Karkat, I see him pressed up against the window with his mouth hanging wide open.

"Welcome to Beverly Hills," I say with a smirk, and he twists and peers at me as if he's seeing me from the first time.

"Shit," he says. "Are you a movie star?"

"Well. I mean. In the very strictest definition," I drawl, "yes."

Karkat mouths _holy shit_ and goes back to staring out the window. Probably saw Natalie Portman or something. No big. She sent me a limited edition Padme Amidala action figure for Christmas last year with a note about how much she'd love to be in one of my flicks. I'd actually considered it -- she could totally make it work -- before I'd decided I was done making movies forever.

The truth is, I fucking hate Beverly Hills. It's a shallow place filled with shallow people. Not the actors, exactly, though some of them can queue up to bite me, sure. But the culture of parasites that swarm around the actors, hoping for some of that glitz and glam to rub off onto them. The trends, the blogs, the star-tours, the tourists, the heat, the beaded jewelry, the yoga...

I grew up in Texas. Make no mistake -- I fucking hate Texas, too. But it's a more fond hate. I hate Texas like I hate all the bad-but-not-awful foster parents I've had. Like, honestly, fuck that shit for messing my head up and also for just being objectively fucking terrible, but hey, it's a part of me. Worn jeans, cookouts, oppressive fucking heat, nobody taking their goddamn Christmas lights down, flies everywhere, and that fucking confederate flag on everything from bikinis to picnic tables to actual flagpoles-- that's in my DNA, man. Fuck that shit, but also, it's _my_ shit.

My hate for LA is the hate of an outsider. I don't get it. I can and do blend into this world by becoming a parody of the people who live in it, but it doesn't make sense to me. Ribs and screen doors and friendly neighbourhood racism? I understand that. Fairtrade latte macchiatos with soy milk at a hipster cafe you saw on your lifestyle guru's blog? What the fuck is this shit.

But.

But despite all of that, I've lived in this glitzy, preposterous shithole with all of its many layers of posing for long enough that I feel I'm part of it. Which I usually hate, but seeing Karkat Vantas looking like fucking Cinderella at the ball, I get kind of a rush. I like the thought that he associates this glamour with me. I like the thought that I could show it to him and impress the fuck out of him. I start looking forward to when we get to the estate.

It's a weird feeling. I haven't actually looked forward to something since Rebranding Day.

And then I think about it a little harder and my coils of dread go fucking boa constrictor tier. My estate has a cook. Housekeeper. Security. My handlers, who I especially don't want to deal with. It's filled with all these people who either don't know what I've been going through, or _do_ know and then there's that, and...

I swallow hard.

I can't. Shit, I fucking _can't_.

"Karkat," I say. Something in my voice must tell him that I'm having a moment, cause when he looks at me, his eyes are wide and unguarded. He looks worried. It tickles at my heart.

"What?" he says. He tries to sound annoyed but I can tell he's actually concerned.

It feels... nice.

"Can you, uh. I can't -- I don't think I can deal. With... um, anything. Fuck. Rose... Fuck."

"Oh..." Karkat swallows and looks away guiltily. "Uh, sorry. I didn't say anything, I didn't think... are you worried about your staff? Rose sent them all away. Uh, except the guy who controls your gate."

"Jesus," I say. Relief floods through me.

And then, unfairly, annoyance.

I get my phone out.

TG: ok  
TG: this is officially fucking stupid  
TG: are you scheduling my interviews too  
TG: approving my projects  
TG: watching my audition tapes  
TG: cutting my rolls  
TT: I thought you weren't making any more movies.  
TG: im not but maybe you have other ideas  
TT: Dave.  
TG: ugh  
TG: look i know youre trying to take care of me but its fuckin weird that you apparently have every aspect of my life micromanaged for me and i havent even gotten back to it yet  
TT: Dave, honestly.  
TT: Stop being a child.  
TT: You're not well. Yes, I've dipped my fingers into your life and subsumed your role in your decision making processes. It's called being helpful.  
TT: If you decide you want your staff after all, you only have to make the call, and they will be there.  
TT: I told Karkat to communicate all of this to you.  
TG: oh my god rose fuck this  
TT: What did I do wrong, now?  
TG: i dont fucking know  
TG: i just dont want to deal with this  
TT: With your staff?  
TG: with anything  
TT: Well.  
TT: Then it's a good thing I've set things up in such a way that you have very little on your plate to actually deal with.  
TT: And that I'm here to help you slowly introduce more and more complicated elements back into your life, with Karkat as an intermediary.  
TT: I assume you can at least handle being buzzed into your estate by the only human being on the premises?

Why the fuck does she always have to be so goddamn reasonable? I stare at my phone, and then, in a fit of pique, shove it into my pocket without responding. Because the only thing to say is "yes Rose you're right and I'm a toddler" and I'm not willing to debase myself quite that low, no matter _how_ accurate.

We're about to get to my place, anyway. Sunset Boulevard has disappeared and now we're well into celebrity residence territory. As soon as the car pulls up, people are going to take notice. Dave Strider's missing and here's a car pulling up to his place. So I decide to just lean into it. I fumble through my bags. My best set of aviators is, I think... somewhere back on a beach? A club? I don't know. I think I fucked some guy's girlfriend and he broke them. Jesus. What a week. But I find a pair of bulky shades to wear while driving and when I slip those on and tuck my hair back, I feel very Strider-esque despite the t-shirt and jeans.

The car pulls up to the gate. I wink at Karkat -- he can't see me, probably, but it's the thought that counts -- and swing on out of the car. I keep my eyes straight ahead, focused on the goal, but I saunter and stroll as I do it. I feel eyes on me. I'm on stage. So I perform.

I salute the driver when I reach the intercom. I hit the button. "Yo," I say. "Back in town."

"One moment, Mr. Strider."

The gate swings open.

I can't see anyone watching, but damn, do I ever feel them. They're whispering behind their hands. Updating Facebook statuses. Tweeting it. They're snapping pics, putting them up on Instagram. And suddenly, I think -- fuck. Why not. I lean down so the driver can hear me. "Hey," I say. "Can you swing up to the house and drop our bags off? Thanks, dude." I don't wait for confirmation, just open the side door and haul Karkat out like he's a kitten and I'm cat-mom or something.

He squirms like a kitten, too, but his protests die when he looks ahead and sees my property. Or at least, the tip of the iceberg -- the long drive flanked with verdant greenery down to the three storey, sprawling estate. Beyond that? Twenty-five fucking acres of palatial excess.

It's ironic. Kind of. Also, it's just a fucking nice place to live, because why not? I paid my dues to the dirt and live daily with my terrible empty life. I deserve four swimming pools.

"Fucking fuck," Karkat breathes. And then, barely missing a beat. "You fucking bastard. You really stiffed me on that tip."

I laugh and start down the walk. "Come on," I say. "Let's breathe that smoggy LA air and stretch our legs out." I put my hand on his back, just to nudge him along. Calculated move. By the time we've taken three steps, twenty-two gossip columns are already speculating.


	9. I Drive A Fast Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

I point out all sorts of exciting things while we make our way down the quarter-mile driveway. See, look. From here, you can see the ivy-covered gazebo. Check it out. If you stand right here, you can see the guest house rising up way over beside the estate, to our left. Okay, but see here? If you turned off the road here and hiked up this hill, you'd get to this long, narrow, deep pool. There are a thousand LEDs installed halfway down that turn the water into a fucking rainbow lightshow. It's kind of underwhelming in the daytime, but shit, Karkat, you should see it at night.

For his part, Karkat mostly seems too overwhelmed to really comment on any of it. But I can tell he's impressed, because his eyes are wide as saucers and he looks around in all directions. His mouth never closes for a second, just hangs semi-open.

My stomach starts coiling into knots as we get close to the estate, and I have to remind myself over and over that Rose had all my staff kicked to the curb except the guy at the gatehouse. Bless Rose. Fucking bless. All my irrational annoyance at having her manage me is completely gone by the time we reach the circle of pavement curling protectively around the two story fountain in front of my house. Dusk is just starting to settle in. The lights are coming up all over my estate, including the ones in the fountain.

"This is fucking insane," Karkat says, and he just sounds like he's about to fall over. "You're a fucking parody of a human being. This is absolutely fucking bonkers, you know that?"

Yeah, I actually do. That's the thing about being a surrender baby and growing up in a comedically escalating series of terrible foster homes -- you can truly _appreciate_ the over the top excess of this sort of lifestyles of the rich and famous bullshit. That's kind of part of the statement I'm making. There are some parts of it that aren't a statement, and I really just like having a bowling alley in my goddamn house. Who wouldn't?

We go in through the garage, because I'm still not done showing off. I can't help it. The people I surround myself with tend to be numb to this whole in Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree shit. It bounces off of them. They don't see the beautiful irony of a kid who grew up in Texas squalor living like this, because it's normal to them, and they aren't impressed by the unironic comforts and splendour, either, because... it's normal to them. Of course I live like this. I'm a living legend. I'm redefining what 'movie star' means. I'm blurring the lines between A-List Actor and the hidden, respectable, but invisible man behind the camera. The same people who imagine and admire all this postmodern symbolism in my dumb movies miss all of the _actual_ meaning in my palatial estate. When _they_ see that I've got twelve cars, they nod to themselves. Well, they say. Seems legit. 

They definitely don't yell "Holy fuck!" and throw themselves toward the closest Benz with eyes as big and bright as moons.

Karkat looks over all of the cars. His eyes just keep getting bigger and bigger, until I'm grinning outright. When he's finally checked out the last one on the line, he turns back to me and shouts across the garage. "Okay. Time to settle the fuck up, Dave Strider. Who the fuck are you?"

"Guess my movies aren't a big deal in Morocco." I laugh.

He trails his fingers along each of the hoods as he makes his way back. "So you're an actor," he says, but there's a furrow in his dark brow. "I'm not so sure about that. I like American movies a lot, and I don't recognize you."

I shake my head. "Not an actor. Director. I --" My phone starts buzzing in my pocket and I hold up a finger to Karkat as I fish it out. Rose, probably, checking on me to see if I...

Ugh.

Caller ID informs me that it's not Rose at all. It's fucking David Fincher, who thinks my movies are a commentary on the excess of the modern age and a nuanced statement on auteur theory and likes to pretend that we're friends because we kind of share a name. He's got some new flick coming out next month, I think. Rose has been talking about it. Adaptation of some Swedish book. I can hear her voice in my ear, scolding me. _It's been an international best-seller in many languages. The film is so unnecessary. A remake of the doubtlessly superior Swedish version. How do you not know the title, Dave? Do you listen to anything I say? Do you even follow your own industry?_

All of this, of course, is just to distract myself as my new phone keeps buzzing in my hand. I have to decide, like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix, whether to press the green button or the red button. Fincher is real-world shit. He's someone I know. He's the first connection I might draw back to my real life. Once I answer, I can't take it back.

But if I don't?

I mean, when will I?

Karkat sighs impatiently. "No way. What the fuck kind of director lives like this?" he asks. "I think you're pulling my leg, asshole. Who the fuck are you _really_?"

And him crashing in on my internal monologue makes it really easy to hit the red button and slip the phone back into my pocket. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That's the name of the book/movie.

"Yeah, well," I smirk down at him. "I'm kind of a special case." I turn and motion him forward.   
"Come on."

He grumbles something about not appreciating my vague teasing self-important bullshit, but goes real quiet again when we come into the foyer. Crystal chandelier, dual winding staircases, dual nude statues flanking the entrance to the grand dining room. While I put in the code for the alarm so the police don't show up, he stops just between the two statues, gazing outwards. If you stand right there, the door to the back patio and the long rainbow swimming pool is framed perfectly. All of LA is spread out on the skyline, which is turning bruised tones of purple and pink as the sun sets behind us.

"Shit," he breathes, and then comes back to himself and scurries after me when I start making my way up the staircase.

He says he likes American movies, right? So I take him into the viewing room, which he'll probably appreciate. It's all set up and lit like a real theatre, only the seating is like the world's comfiest living room, all big plush red couches overstuffed and perfect for falling asleep on. He exclaims as we enter and darts forward.

My phone buzzes again.

This time, it's my publicist. I don't... hate her. She's nice, really. Gregarious and pleasant and whatnot. But she's so wrapped up in my image, my image, my image, that being around her is exhausting. She's always rattling on about how my life has to be a narrative, how every aspect of what I show the public has to support the legend of Dave Strider, brilliant billionaire auteur who pulled himself up from nothing and may or may not be joking about the whole thing. And it chafes. For one thing, lady, I _invented_ that fucking narrative, I don't need you telling me how to do it right. For another thing, my narrative is shit, it's shit and you don't know dick about me so fuck off.

Red button.

"This is brain-meltingly stupid," Karkat says. He's standing before me with body language and tone that's almost accusatory, like he's calling me out. "Who the fuck actually _lives_ here?"

I flash him a grin. "Me," I say, and I turn and head out. He curses and follows on my heels.

Chimes go off through the speakers that run through the place, and I faintly hear the front door open and then shut.

My security people are gone, the alarm is still off, and my brain goes white with static. All I can think is -- she's here. The Empress, Betty Crocker, she's here, in my house. The alarm is off, my security personnel are gone and she found me. I'm moving before I'm aware of it, a thin whining noise high in my ears and my heart pounding like a drum and blood rushing through me. I hit the bannister at the top of the winding staircase and look down, feeling, weirdly enough, like I'm ready for a fight, and...

And the driver from the car looks up at me.

Oh.

He's carrying our bags and he gently puts them down on the marble floor. "Will that be all, Mr. Strider?" he asks, and I realize with a hysterical case of the giggles that he's hanging around, just making a bunch of noise, trying to be heard, because he wants his tip.

Jesus.

I can't even explain why I was so sure it was her. I tip the guy big money and he goes away and I'm standing in the foyer with our bags around my feet like prostrate worshippers and I try to figure out what weird instinct had kicked into gear, there. Yeah, Rose has said that she and I would have some role in resisting her, but she hadn't given any impression that the Empress _knew_ about that. I feel like she probably would have come after us first thing, if so. Like, she'd been here since the 20s, right? Why not suffocate Rose and I in our cribs? No, there's no reason at all to think that she's targeting us.

So...

What?

And what did I think coming at her like that was even going to do? Why not hide? Did I think I was going to... what, get into a brawl with her? An alien empress destined to exterminate humanity? Not fucking likely. But still... still, my fingers had itched and I think that I actually thought I might take her?

Fuck.

"This place is crazy," Karkat's voice echoes through the foyer.

I look up and he's standing at the bannister I'd thrown myself against so quixotically. I feel for a second like we're Romeo and Juliet-ing. Like this a weird scene from some noir movie where I'm a cop showing up to inform him that his rich husband has died.

" _You're_ crazy," he reiterates. "I found a hallway that has a forest in it. Like... it's a fucking forest. There's soil and trees and bushes and shit. What the fuck? Why are there fucking _trees_? We're inside, douchebag!"

"You don't think it's pretty?" I ask, fluttering my eyelashes.

"I think it's overkill!" he shoots back. "We get it! You're super fucking cool, okay? You're _so_ goddamn shit-eating cool. You're so cool you can't leave outside stuff outside. We're all so fucking impressed!"

"I'm glad you like it," I say, and hold up his ratty backpack. It's heavier than I expected. Presumably, there's something inside other than booty shorts.

He huffs a sigh and comes down the stairs.

My phone's ringing again. I check it. It's Stiller. Is he going to apologize for dragging me in the Mail? Or slam the point home? Tell him he refuses to work with me anymore? I really should answer this one. Rip the band-aid off, at least.

Karkat grabs the bag out of my hand. Eh. Fuck it. I hit the red button. Not today, Morpheus. I'm blue pilling the fuck out of here.

The kid holds the pack close to his chest. It's a really young bit of body language that drives home the gulf of decades between us. "Your birthday's in late June, huh?" I ask with a laugh. "Doesn't that make you a cancer? Fuck, dude. Your mother had a hilarious sense of humour."

Something dark flickers in the kid's eyes. "Didn't have a mother," he says shortly. He swings the back up on his back. Before I can say _Oh man, we got Oliver Twist up in here_ or _Damn, your life is like the plot of some Oscar-bait movie_ or _Hey... sorry, man, me too_ , he juts his jaw and asks, "Okay, but, for real. What kind of movies do you make?"

I look away. Reach down and gather my bags up. "Bad ones," I admit, and start dragging my shit off down a hall. Luckily, my bedroom is on the first floor. I don't really want to haul my shit up the stairs without staff to help.

"No, I mean... what genre?"

I laugh. "Bad ones," I repeat.

"That isn't a fucking genre!" he snaps, hurrying after me.

"Oh, isn't it? Yeah. Spoken like someone who's never seen the indefensive shit I make!" The world is ending, and I've spent my adult life spending millions of dollars making intentionally bad pretentious mind-fuck.

"Look, stop being so fucking -- I have a reason for asking, okay? If I'm going to waste a chunk of my life making sure that you don't get sad and spare us all your company again, it would at least be nice to get something out of it, and I..."

I'd just thrown up the door to my room and he trails way off, standing at the doorway.

God, I'm such a pile of shit.

I don't let anyone I'm not having sex with into my room, which might lead someone to imagine that it's, like, my sanctum or something. Like, it's where I let all the pretentious nonsense float away and "truly be myself" or something. Well, that's a little hard when I have no idea what my true fucking self is, and so the room is just as outrageously ostentatious as the rest of the place. Fuck, maybe more, because this time, I'm only doing it to impress myself. And the people I'm planning to bone, I guess, though I rarely give a fuck about their opinions and just as often we fall into bed in a guest room.

Yeah, my home is some big statement about blah blah poor kid from the south, blah blah blah. Hadn't I just told myself that narrative a few minutes ago? Boo fucking hoo, nobody understands me. My statement is so nuanced that they just don't get it. That's nice. I'm even posing for myself. My bedroom shows that shit for the big lie it is. I'm not trying to make a statement to anyone with the velvet red walls, the round canopied bed, the entire wall of built in sound system, the attached bathroom with chrome fixtures. I just like it. I like living in a jewelery box of excess because I feel like I deserve it. I look around my inner sanctum and the emptiness floods back.

"I'm not sleeping in here," Karkat states firmly.

No shit, I should say. There are twelve bedrooms and twenty-three bathrooms in this house. You can pick one. Instead, I say, "But what if I try and kill myself during the night? What will Rose do, then?"

It comes out painfully sincere.

Maybe if I'd made it sound like a joke, he'd have scoffed and stomped off to find his own room, like I'd intended him to. But instead it had sounded like an actual real plea. I try not to look too hard about it.

Both of our eyes go to the big, fluffy futon.

A beat of silence.

Then, "... does that pull out?" Karkat asks.

"Yeah," I say. My voice sounds really small.

"Okay," he says. He brushes past me and throws his pack onto it. He doesn't look at me while he fishes around inside of it, comes out with a hairbrush, and then pads off into the adjoining bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

I run a hand through my hair. Jesus.

Oh, and my phone is ringing again.

It's my PA. And my finger immediately goes to hover over the green button. Of all the awful people who surround my awful life, he's probably the one I hate the least. He's a handsome, young, bright-eyed ingenue from upstate. Rose found him for me after my last PA had leaked the name of some of my on-and-off lovers to a gossip blog. I'd thought it was funny, like I cared who knew who I boned. Rose had said it was an invasion of privacy and she wouldn't stand for it. So she found this guy and I'll be the first to admit that it's been a good move.

Poor dude. He'd probably been beside himself worrying about me. He gets anxiety attacks when I'm late for interviews, much less skipping an entire convention and then vanishing entirely.

I hear the shower head come on and glance up, looking at the closed bathroom door. I bite my lip and try not to think about Karkat naked in my shower, water sluicing down his dark body. I fail entirely and think about it with much relish and an aching desire.

Phone's still going.

He'll have something to say, of course. Not just hello, Mr. Strider, I'm so glad that you're all right. It'll be oh and also I have this and this and this to pencil you in for. 

But the problem with not hating him is that I can't just ignore him, no matter how much he's the bearer of bad bullshit.

Red pill time.

Half an hour later, Karkat emerges from the bathroom wearing the same dirty clothes he went in with. I might need to buy him some stuff. I'm sitting at the edge of my bed wearing silk monogrammed pyjamas, for my part, and he rolls his eyes when I stand up and he gets a look at me.

"Good shower?" I ask.

He averts his eyes. "Uh, yeah," he says. "Way better water pressure than I ever had at my place in Ibiza."

Which makes me feel weirdly proud. LIke I'm personally responsible, somehow. Jesus.

"So," I say, as he sets about pulling out the futon. "How much do you want to go to a fancy Hollywood party tomorrow night? It's Rachel McAdams's birthday, and I may have gotten guilted into saying I'd go."

His eyes go wide. "Who?"

"Rachel McAdams," I say. "You know, Mean Girls?"

"I know Mean Girls, idiot!" Karkat snaps. "I told you, I like American movies! And Mean Girls is -- well, I just mean -- well, it's a good movie! I like it!" He's blushing furiously and before I can start to rib him about it, he's off again. "Who the fuck _are_ you?" he asks. "What movies do you make, that you know all these people and can afford a place like this and get invited to parties like that?"

I just point to the wall behind him.

His brow furrows, and then he turns and looks. There's a theatrical release poster from the original Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff behind him, and he goes stiff...

...and then throws up his hands.

"Oh, fuck no!"

Oh, good. He's a hater.


	10. Just To Prove

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

When I come back into the bedroom from my blanket gathering expedition, he's waiting for me.

"It's barely even a movie!" Karkat says.

I toss him the bundle of sheets I just went out foraging for. He catches them like a pro; the crowd goes wild. "See, I don't know about that," I drawl. I sit at the edge of my bed and watch him struggle with the fitted sheet. "I mean, I filmed them myself, and there were definitely cameras and lighting and sound guys and boom mics and shit. And I was at the premiere, where it played in a theatre, so... pretty sure I hit all the qualifications for movie-hood."

Karkat is getting well and truly tangled up in that sheet, and I watch with a growing smirk. Something about the sight of him fighting with the fabric is tickling at the edge of my memory, but I can't place why. "You know what I fucking mean! Stop being willfully fucking ignorant, you pretentious hipster fuckwad!" He tries to shake the sheet out but it's halfway wrapped around him and he growls.

"I really don't," I say, despite the fact that I really do. "Come on, bro. What does Mean Girls have that I don't?"

Other than competent film-making, that is.

"I -- just give me one -- fucking --- _argh_!" Karkat manages to untangle himself and throws the sheet onto the ground like he thinks he's Thor or something. I smother down my amusement, because I'm pretty sure he's going to fly at me in a flurry of claws and teeth if I laugh outright. He stands over the offending sheet for a moment, his chest expanding like some reptilian show of aggression while he huffs and puffs. Then he turns his big brown eyes on me. "For starters," he says, with viciousness that I feel is only maybe thirty percent for me, with the rest being vicarious carry-over from the sheet, "it has a fucking screenwriter!"

Hah. Yeah, that's a pretty good point.

I climb to my feet and stretch. I pace over to him and, just when he starts blushing, thinking I'm going to do something untoward, I bend down and scoop up the sheet. I give him a sideways grin and he bares his teeth at me and I start unfurling the sheet. Surely, with me to help, he can accomplish this task.

"My movies have a screenwriter," I say, handing him one end and crossing over to tuck my end in.

"Fuck, no," Karkat spits back. He stars down at the end I gave him, and then shrugs and starts tucking his in. He doesn't even fall over comically or anything, so good job, little buddy. "No fucking way there was a screenplay for that trash. You threw a shit-encrusted, drug-addled chimp into an enclosure with a typewriter and then filmed whatever the fuck came out."

I actually snort at that. Damn, but he doesn't evoke some strong imagery. I can't help but think that he and Rose should hang out under better circumstances. I think she might appreciate his especially vile turn of phrase. "Nope," I say. "All me, baby."

Karkat shoots me a look. That self-impressed little half-smile appears on his lips again, and he raises his eyebrows. "That doesn't contridict my theory at all, yet."

Haha. Pretty good. "Shit, I think I just got blasted."

"There's no plot structure," Karkat says. His little smile vanishes and now he's focusing on tucking in the sheet like he's performing brain surgery. "And it's because the characters don't have any agendas! None of them actually _want_ anything! They just get thrown from increasingly escalating fuckwittery to fuckwittery, learning nothing, barely even interacting with the world around them! There aren't even any funny _jokes_! The only joke appears to be that the movie is just fucking objectively puke-swillingly _bad_!"

This is all stuff that people who can tell the Emperor is naked have said before. But even they have only said it in articles. Never to my face. And never with this sort of... _passion_.

I... kind of love it?

"Yep," I say.

He stops and looks up at me, brow furrowed. "What do you mean 'yep?'"

"I mena, yep. You solved it. That's it. That's the joke. The joke is that it's bad."

Karkat stands stock still for a second. I can see the wheels turning in his head, just as clearly as if there's steam pouring out of his ears. "I --" he says. Stops again. Thinks about it. Throws his hands up to either side of his face, shaped into claws, and howls, "What the _fuck_ , then?"

Shit, oh shit, this is too good.

"What the fuck, what?" I ask, trying to sound all innocent and like I don't know what he means.

"What the fuck, why the fuck have you made this sort of money"-- and here he flails his arms around, indicating, it would seem, literally everything -- "for making films that are _intentionally bad_! What's so special about a _bad_ movie? Fuck! Let me have a camera, I'll make a bad movie! Anyone can make something bad!"

"But not everyone can make something _intentionally_ bad," I say. I'm splitting hairs. At this point, I'm not even sure I believe it. But he's getting so fucking riled up and saying all these things that I've been thinking and it's _delightful?_

"Yes they can!" Karkat protests and actually fists both of his hands in his wild mane of hair, that's how frustrated he is with my shit. "I sat upon a toilet seat and there I laid a creamy shit. Look, I just wrote an intentionally bad poem! It's meaningless, the rhythm is off, and it kind of but doesn't quite rhyme! It's hot garbage on every level! It took me two seconds and zero effort!"

I can't help it. I start laughing. Shit, but his vitriol is _nice_. It's the 1875 Chateau Margaux of contempt. "Okay," I wheeze, holding up a hand. "Okay. Okay." I try and get myself under control and straighten to face him. "Okay," I say. "All right. Here's the secret. You're actually totally right."

"I -- what?"

"Yeah, like. Totally. The thing is, yeah, the joke is that they're bad, but I mean, you've seen them, right?"

Karkat eyes me. He folds his lips. "I've seen the first one," he admits. "I couldn't fucking torture myself with an encore. Especially since everyone around me kept talking about how _good_ it was! Did everyone's brains just leap out of their heads and head for the coast?"

I start to get excited listening to him talk. After years of hearing everyone ascribe all sorts of meaning to my work, Karkat actually hitting the whole thing so dead on the nose is stoking a fire in me I was pretty sure had gone out. "Yeah! No, like, yeah, that's it! That right there, that's why my movies make so much money! That's why everyone is always fucking talking about them, right? Because I layer so many fucking tiers of bullshit, right? Bullshit on bullshit on bullshit. It's so fucking bad, but there's so much imagery and so many weird lines and shit, right? And everyone gets it in their head that it can't _actually_ just be bad! It has to be some kind of like... like, a statement. Like, whoa, hold the fuck up, junior, this dude has a whole bunch to say about, like... global warming or conspicuous consumption or idiocracy or auteur theory or the fucking illuminati or some shit. He must be a fucking genius, holy balls, can we already buy our tickets for the next one? We want the secrets to the universe poured into our gaping baby-bird peeping craws, thanks. Because nobody has well spoken and charismatic as me could actually just throw junk at a screen and see how people react to it. Except that's _exactly_ what I did. The sequels are just more of the same, just me trying to one-up myself and see how deep down the rabbit hole my dumbass audience is willing to follow me."

Karkat is watching me like I'm having a nervous breakdown or something, and... maybe I am? Because I'm talking really fast and using my hands and my voice is climbing and climbing.

I smile weakly. I drop my hands. "Uh, and the answer is... all the way the fuck down, bro. We're bottoming this shit out in hell, where no rabbit has gone before."

He looks at me. I look at him.

He buried his face in his hands.

"You're a lunatic," he whispers hoarsely. "I'm shackled to a fucking _psychotic._ "

He manages to get the upper sheet on mostly by himself, and then the chenille blanket I grabbed off one of the couches in the viewing room. I stand back and leave him to his shit. My head's kind of going around in circles, anyway. He makes the bed like it's a ritual, and I can't help but admire how he squares his corners and so forth even though he's just about to climb into the thing. I remember arguing with Rose once about this. Why bother making the bed when it's just going to...

... hm.

Actually, now that I think about it, I didn't argue about this with Rose at all. Rose doesn't make her bed, either. Never has. She and I are on the same team with bed-making. _Getting into a bed that's still tousled from your sleep feels more natural, doesn't it?_ I can remember her saying.

What was I remembering, then?

Probably something with one of my foster siblings over the years. Or maybe one of my household staff, who always insist on making mine? Still. Still, weird that I would think of it, now.

Karkat finally finishes and flops down onto the bed. I look at his scuffed jeans and two-day-old hoodie for a second. "You want a t-shirt or something?" I ask. Anything I bought for myself would probably hang low like a nightshirt on him.

I really don't mean anything by it, but clearly he takes it that way. He turns over and curls into the fetal position. "Just because you got me to sleep in here doesn't mean I'm going to fuck you," he says in a guarded voice.

My lips twist into something that is neither a smile nor a grimace and I lay back on my own bed. I'd let myself get sort of caught up in the brutal honesty of us talking about my films. Let myself forget, for a second, that this isn't a relationship of equals. That he's here because he's obligated to be, like everyone else.

"Yeah," I say. "Sorry. Just thought you might be more comfortable, or something. I don't know. Whatever."

I think he feels bad, because he has a really defensive edge in his voice when he talks again. "Well," he says. "Now I've got all of your secrets, asswipe. What makes you think that I'm not going to run to the nearest gossip reporter and turn you in for fucking with everyone's minds?"

I sit up a bit. He's laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. I sigh and crawl back on my bed, pulling aside the covers -- seriously, I _hate_ getting into a made bed, I feel like I'm crawling into a fucking cacoon or something. "Well," I say. "I mean, two things. First thing, I don't think that you're going to blow your meal ticket, here. Now that you've seen Palazzo di Strider, you'd kind of have to be an idiot to accept a grand for a hot tip to Perez Hilton."

"Okay," Karkat says. "That's a pretty good point. This place is -- well, it's fucking stupid. It's _idiotic_. But it's... pretty amazing."

"Yep." I clap twice, and the lights start to dim. I wrap myself up in the blankets and look up at the canopy. "Second reason," I say, "is because it doesn't fucking matter. Honestly? I think you're right about all of it. I'm done with Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. I've wasted so many years of my life playing bullshit mind games with people. Everything is part of the narrative, and... and fuck it. I spend so much fucking time trying to sell the mystery of Dave Strider, brilliant auteur, that nobody except Rose actually knows me, and I'm just... tired of it."

"Oh," he says. The lights continue to fade until we're laying in the dark. There's french doors leading out to the patio against one wall, but otherwise, there's no windows. I like total darkness when I sleep. I don't think the sun is all the way set, just yet, but it's pretty much pitch black in here other than the red lights on the sound system.

When he speaks up again, his voice is pretty quiet. "Is that why you, uh...?"

I swallow. "Uh, yeah. Partly." I can't even get into all the reasons. How can I explain to him what the discovery of alien life on Earth _really_ means? Or what happened between Rose and I to make it so that the one real connection in my life had just gone up in flames the night we met? But... sure. At its most simple level, that's where it all starts.

"You should make good movies," he says suddenly, full of conviction. "You have all the connections and you can fund it and all that. You should make something that has actual _value_."

I laugh bitterly into the darkness. "Uh, yeah," I say. "That would require me actually having _talent_. I'm not sure I could _make_ a good movie." In fact, I'm fully sure I couldn't. I'm a poser. That's all.

I close my eyes and curl onto my side. It feels... nice, sleeping in my own bed. It's a good thing, right? That I feel comfort from being home? That I got catharsis out of having Karkat tear my shit to threads? That I feel a load being lifted after having confessed to someone who's listening that I'm done making movies? That means that... I don't know. That I'm not just zombie-walking through my own afterlife?

I hear my phone buzz and reach for it by my pillow. I don't know who to expect, Rose or someone from real life, but it's a text from an unknown number. I blink against the white glare from the screen and unlock my phone.

CG: LOOK, I'M SORRY.   


What the fuck? I rub my eyes and peer at the phone. I double-check, but yeah. Unknown number, and I don't... think recognize the screenname? It seems vaguely familiar, maybe. Or maybe not.

TG: new phone who dis  
CG: IT'S KARKAT, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.   


What the fuck?

TG: haha what  
TG: what the fuck  
CG: SHUT THE FUCK UP, I HEAR YOU LAUGHING.   


Yeah, okay, I'm choking down chuckles, over here, but can you blame me?

TG: fuck  
TG: i have so many questions  
TG: like  
TG: why are you texting me from across the room  
TG: and  
TG: why are you texting in capslock  
TG: those are the two biggest ones really  
CG: I'M TEXTING YOU FROM ACROSS THE ROOM BECAUSE I JUST FIND IT A LOT EASIER TO BE HONEST ABOUT EMBRASSING SHIT WHEN I'M NOT EXERCISING THE USE OF MY FUCKING VOCAL CORDS, OKAY?  
TG: haha  
TG: ok bro  
CG: AND I'M USING CAPSLOCK BECAUSE I THINK THIS DUMB FUCKING PHONE IS BROKEN AND I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO TURN IT THE FUCK OFF.  
TG: it makes you sound like  
TG: super angry  
TG: are we gonna fight karkat  
TG: is this about to be a rumble  
CG: NO.  
CG: FUCK, YOU'RE EVEN MORE ANNOYING IN TEXT.   


I can't seem to stop laughing.

"Cut it the fuck out!" he snaps from his bed.

"Oh my god," I say. "This is enormously fucking dumb, you know that, right?"

CG: STOP IT.  
CG: YOU'RE MAKING IT WEIRD.  
TG: bro ive got some news for you  
TG: it started weird  
TG: it left the station already carrying a full load of weird  
CG: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, I'M NEVER GOING TO BE NICE TO YOU EVER AGAIN. THIS IS THE REPAYMENT I GET?  
CG: UNBELIEVABLE!  
TG: what are you even apologizing for anyway   


He doesn't reply right away. I hear him breathing in the darkness, and for a moment it's like my vision is doubled, and there are two Karkats, the one in the bed and the one in my phone. In my head, they look different, sound different... _are_ different.

The sensation passes.

CG: I...  
CG: I PROBABLY SHOULDN'T HAVE JUST ASSUMED YOU WERE TRYING TO SEDUCE ME EARLIER WHEN YOU WERE ACTUALLY JUST OFFERING ME SOME CLOTHES.  
CG: I JUST...  
CG: WHATEVER.  
CG: I DON'T REALLY HAVE AN EXCUSE, I JUST REACT REALLY STRONGLY TO THINGS SOMETIMES, OKAY?  
TG: ...yeah  
TG: i mean thats fine man  
TG: like  
TG: it was a pretty fair assumption considering how we met and shit so  
TG: you dont need to apologize  
CG: OKAY.  
TG: ok  
TG: now we have got to figure out how to turn that shit off because you look like youre screaming at the top of your lungs and its wigging me the fuck out   


I hear him laugh quietly and I'm startled when I feel my lips curving into a smile.

It's an actual smile. Like, my lips curl up at the corners and my heart beats a little faster and I didn't force it, I didn't paste it on my face, it's not bitter or ironic or smirky. It's a real smile. Karkat's laugh made me smile.

Not sure what that means. Might be good news. Might be trouble. Who knows?

But it sure feels good.

"Night," I whisper into the darkness.

He doesn't say anything back.


	11. Interlude 3: August, 1987 // Drag me back to Bumfuck, Assland.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

Dave struggled with the zipper on his bag. The fucking thing was so old at this point it was falling apart, and he was impatient to get all of his stuff squared away so that he could spend some more time with Rose before the bus got here. The damn deteriorating nylon holding the zipper to the bag kept giving more and more in response to his tugging, and he stepped back from his bunk, throwing his hands in the air.

"Fuck!"

The sun streaming in from the cabin door went dim. "Dave, please!" A familiar voice said. "There are kids here a lot younger than you!"

Dave snapped his head around, flushing. He jammed his hands into his pockets, slumping his shoulders a bit. "They're foster kids, too," he muttered. "Junior's gonna hear as bad or worse from his next shitty dad coming down the pipe."

It had been six years plus one summer since a very young Michael Johnson had been waved to the nametag table by a harried twenty-something camp counsellor. She was thirty-something now and Dave could see a few lines around the corners of her eyes as she gave him a long-suffering smile and came forward to help him zip his bag like he was still a kid. She'd been at camp every year he'd been able to go, and he thought that part of him would always love her because, indirectly, she was the one who had given him the chance to be Dave.

"I could have done that," he grumbled as she slowly held the rotting nylon closed and zipped his bag up carefully, one tooth at a time. "It's not exactly rocket science. Whoa, check this shit out, bigtime camp lady can get a bag closed. Holy balls, she's a genius."

She turned and deposited the secured bag into his arms. "You really need to watch that mouth of yours," she warned. She seemed... sad. And he hated it. He didn't need her sympathy. "It's going to get you into a world of trouble, someday."

"You're gonna have a world of egg on your face when my silver tongue gets me elected president, lady," he said.

"Is that what you _want_ to be?"

Dave looked away. He made a flippant scoffing noise, but only to hide the knots that tied in his belly. The staff here always were asking that sort of question. What do you dream of? What future do you see for yourself? The sort of thing none of his foster families had ever actually taken the time to wonder, much less try to engage him with. It felt good and warm when they asked those questions, because he got the feeling they really cared about the answer. And it also felt like crap. Because he never knew what to say to any of them. He liked to draw. He liked music. He liked looking for fossils. He didn't know what that meant.

What kind of future was there for someone like him, anyway?

He shrugged and forced himself to look up. He hated that she could probably read his uncertainty in his eyes. "Okay," he said. "How about this? I'll think about it and next year I'll totally hand you a list of all my top ten picks for future career options." He already resolved to fill it with things like 'elephant washer' or ‘Olympic speed dialer.'

He didn't expect her face to fall. "Oh, Dave," she said, her voice so heavy with pity that he wanted to spit in her face and get the fuck out of there. "Did nobody tell you?"

*

By the time he found Rose under the big old tree where they'd first met, his eyes were already red from crying, his head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton balls, his throat hurt, and he hated himself. He hated every second of memory of how he'd crumpled into the counselor's arms and wept like a fucking baby. He hated how she'd _shh_ ed into his ear and stroked his back like a mother he'd never had and he actually had liked it. He hated that she'd seen him fall apart like that, and he hated the ragged edge rubbing up against him that made it super clear in his head that he could have his control torn away like that again in a second if someone looked at him wrong.

HAVE A GREAT YEAR, the banner over the big dining cabin encouraged. He hated the dishonesty of it. More like, HAVE A GREAT LIFE. BYE. DON'T WRITE. WE GOT BILLS TO PAY, FOO. The speakers playing the radio piped out I've Had The Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing, which was at least a little more honest.

Dave stopped in front of Rose. She didn't look up from her book.

"You fucking knew," he said, and his voice broke again, and he hated it.

_and I never felt this way before, and I swear it's the truth..._

Rose marked her page in her book. She looked up at him. Now that he was looking for it, he actually could explain the darkness around her eyes, the slight turn of her mouth, the way she'd been looking at him when she thought he wasn't.

She got to her feet.

And then she moved closer and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"I'm sorry," she said. Her voice was very, very quiet. "I just knew you would start acting different once you knew. And I wanted to just enjoy being together. It's selfish."

She tucked her face into the curve of his neck. He swallowed hard, biting the inside of his fucking cheek so hard he tasted blood. He wouldn't cry. He wouldn't cry. Crying gets you slapped around. Crying gets you dragged through the mud. Crying makes you weak.

"Yeah, it sure is," he said. His voice was rough as sandpaper. "Fuck you, Rose."

"I'd tell you that I would do it differently, but I wouldn't."

She was so -- fucking -- _frustrating_.

And he loved her _so much._

He encircled her and pulled her closer and they clung to one another as Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes serenaded each other. Dave had become aware of a lot of little things about Rose this summer. Things either he'd never noticed before, or hadn't been there. Like the swell underneath her shirt, or the softness of her skin, or the way her eyes sparkled when she smiled at him. All summer, he'd toyed with ideas and thoughts. Like, what if he teased her about having a crush on someone to see how she'd react? Or, what if he responded directly one of those times when she jokingly flirted with him? Or, what would happen if he rolled over and kissed her while they were out on the lawn, looking up at the stars?

Those thoughts felt more relevant than ever, now that he was holding her in his arms. And they also were slipping to somewhere a thousand miles away, because who could say when they'd actually see each other again?

"Are you going to stay angry at me forever?"

"That would get real boring," he said, voice still thick. And lonely. Really, really lonely. "But I'm definitely going to stay angry for a bit, at least. Get real worked up about it. Write some poetry to get my emotions out."

"I would be interested in reading that."

"Oh my god. Of course you would."

He pulled away from her, because his body was getting too aware of hers and the last thing he wanted was for _that_ to be how she figured out he had impure thoughts about her. The fact that he'd actually just thought the phrase 'impure thoughts' made him wince. It was something right out of his current foster dad's mouth, something he got right off his televangelists on the TV, and when the bus came, Dave would be going back there and there wouldn't be this lifeline in the back of his head. Next summer, Foster Camp and Rose wouldn't be here waiting.

His eyes slid off her and up the massive tree behind her. He swallowed hard. "I guess they'll cut this down," he said. "Since this is probably going to be where the parking lot will be."

Rose actually sniffled. She turned away from him quickly, to hide her tears, but she laid a hand against the trunk of the tree, where they had carved the names on their birth certificates, obliterated them, and then carved the names they'd taken for themselves instead underneath. Underneath, they'd chiseled '1981,' and then added another year every time they'd both been here since. 82. 83. 85. The 87 was still fresh, sap leaking out from the wound. 

It was really quiet for a long moment. Dave scuffed at the ground with one of his beat up sneakers.

Then Rose said, "Well, this isn't the end. That's just silly. We'll see one another again, and soon."

Dave felt a bit of hope nipping at the heels of his heart. "Is this one of your weirdass premonitions, here?

She turned back. "No," she said, smiling. "It's logic. We're thirteen in four months. We can get jobs. Save our own money. Make it a _priority._ If we do that, it won't be so long before we can visit."

Thinking about the logistics of the space between them without this government program smoothing off the edges made Dave's head spin. He tried to focus on the positivity of her message. They were the only real connection in either of their lives. Of course they'd see one another again. Just because they didn't have this place linking them anymore, that wouldn't change. They had a connection so strong that nobody even understood it. Michael Johnson and Susan Smith had been awakened by their very contact with one another and become something closer to the people they were meant to be.

And that was all well and good, but Foster Camp had been sold, the fucking dickbags who bought it were going to cut down their tree, and who knows how long it would take either of them to save the kind of money it would take to cross all the distance between them.

He heard the squeal of brakes and turned. Fuck, no. Fuck, yes, as it turned out. The old bus, the one that went to Texas, chugged around the corner. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"I think that's your ride," Rose murmured.

"Yeah," Dave replied. "That's definitely my ride. Here to drag me back to Bumfuck, Assland."

"It'll seem like no time at all," she said.

"Pretty sure it's going to seem like a hundred years, but thanks for the effort, I guess."

Rose sniffled again, and then dove in for another hug. This time, when he wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her hair, he didn't think about her as a girl at all. All he could think about was that he always felt as if he were living the _wrong life_ , and it was only when he was with her that it felt a little bit right.

Time of My Life faded into dramatic quiet, and then, blasting forth from the radio, came the bombastic, absolute worst electronic drumbeat Dave had ever heard. It was so shockingly, jarringly fake sounding that the both of them started laughing. It made it a whole lot easier to disentangle themselves and say goodbye as a singer started proclaiming that he was no stranger to love.

A whole lot of years later, Dave Strider would cite this as his first brush with advanced irony: being rickrolled when he thought his life was ending.


	12. I'm A Real Big Baller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: this chapter deals very frankly with dave's suicidal ideation

So.

We don't end up going to Rachel McAdams's birthday party.

The day goes by. Karkat is mesmerized by his phone and barely looks up from it. I take a long, hot shower. Karkat is on the phone with Rose. I play Fruit Ninja for longer than I really want to admit. Karkat asks me if I know this star or that screenwriter and is gratifyingly impressed by my answers. I order Chinese and buzz the guy at the gate to let him know to bring it up to the door. We open up the little boxes by the pool. Karkat doesn't have a sweet clue how to use chopsticks and I rib him while he glares and eventually throws them into the pool. He eats with his fingers.

There's never really a moment when I decide we're not going, exactly. My PA texts and asks if I want a driver for the party. I say nah, I'll take one of my flashy cars. The clock ticks closer to go-time. I don't lay out my clothes. I wander the halls of the estate. Go up to the second floor balcony and watch dusk start to fall on the city. Karkat texts to check and make sure I'm still alive. Yeah, dude, I'm fine. We're supposed to be at the party in two hours. I should really style my hair. We should leave a bit early so I can get a new pair of aviators -- can't be seen without them. I watch night fall. I wish I could see the stars. I think about me and Rose at Foster Camp, finding constellations. It seems like it should be easier to see them, when they were so damn bright.

The time to leave early passes, and then the window for punctuality passes, and then it's too far gone to even arrive fashionably late. My phone buzzes and it's my PA and I ignore it. It buzzes again. Publicist. Ignore it. Buzz. PA again. Meh.

Karkat finds me on the balcony when the moon is well and truly risen. "What time is the party?" he asks.

"Two hours ago," I reply.

"Fuck," he says. And then, a moment later: "Well, if you're actually _not_ taking me to meet one of the most talented and amazing actresses of my generation can you at least fucking feed me?"

I order pizza. I put anchovies and pineapple on it to fuck with him. He likes it and tells me I have good taste, though it's not as good as mediterranean pizza.

You know what? Fuck you, Vantas, no one spoils my masterful trolling like this by being all weirdly sincere. I suffer through the hellish pizza because I feel bad admitting I was just messing with him. It's truly, truly fucking awful.

He sleeps on the futon again without question. He falls asleep fast and I listen to him breathing in the darkness. He's slowly lost some tension all day long. It's like every time I don't try and use him for my own pleasure or whatever, he starts to believe that I'm not going to. It occurs to me that I'm glad I didn't fuck him. If I had, he'd only ever see me as a john. As it is... it's hard to tell what he sees me as. A meal ticket, sure. Ticket to a better life, definitely. But he saved my life before any of that was on the table, and listening to him in the blackness, it's hard to discard that.

I can't remember the last time I spent a whole day with someone I wasn't selling the Dave Strider legend to. It feels...

I don't know.

I should probably send Rachel a fruit basket or something, I think before I fall asleep. She's cool. Pretty tacky to RSVP to her party and then no-show it.

The thing about a day like this is that it can quickly fall into a rhythm. My estate is set so far apart from the rest of the world, gated and bordered by steep hills and surprisingly thick forest, that even though I'm back in my life, it still feels like another world. And one day of delivery food, quiet companionship, and ignoring my phone quickly becomes two. Three. Four. Five. I blink and two weeks have passed since I got back to California. I haven't left my house.

It's the first of December and I'm sitting in the viewing room on one of the many couches. It feels like it's hugging me, wrapping me up in its plush embrace. The TV is going, and I've got it on CNN, and they're talking about the Empress.

It's one of those roundtable style discussions. There's a pretty blonde lady in a pantsuit trying to raise her voice over her male counterparts. Rose would have something to say about that, but my brain is kind of marinating in its own juices at the moment and can't come up with her little voice. I'm an entirely passive observer while these dumbfucks debate the end of a world they have no idea is dying.

"If she lacks human physiology, why was her first move upon coming to Earth to begin a baking empire?" One of the casters has got his hands waving around like he's praising Jesus or something. "If her species is _so_ alien, wouldn't she metabolize entirely different food?"

"There's _no_ reason to think that she's any different from us," the other man says, a lot more reasonable, but still loud enough that the female caster can't be heard over him. "She _looks_ human. She's Betty Crocker, for Christ's sake! On the surface, it's impossible to tell her apart from any of the rest of us, except that she's quite a bit taller and doesn't look her age."

The female caster manages to speak. "So you think homo sapiens evolved on a separate planet entirely? That doesn't make any sense at all."

"Linda, please. Frankly I'm surprised you think evolution is the cause at all. If anything, I think Ms. Crocker's clearly human appearance and physiology is a great case for creationism! You're right. The odds that human life just _evolved_ in the exact same way on a different planet are astronomically slim. This throws the entire theory of evolution into disarray."

"Fucking hell," I say to the screen. "Fucking unbelievable. Yeah, you nailed it, dude, it's fucking God. _God_ was all like yo I'm just going to copy and paste my best work onto a different planet and then make them fight and see which one comes out on top. God is a fucking arena master, yo. God is watching this shit from his referee bubble but he ain't gonna blow that whistle, no sir. He's just going to watch and maybe get a semi. Idiots. She has a fucking spaceship made of entrails and snot and you don't think she can disguise her third eye and tentacle fingers or whatever?"

"Are you talking to your fucking television?" Karkat's voice comes from behind me.

"Yep," I reply. Maybe he heard the whole thing. So what. He already suspects that I'm one of the doomsaying cult waving signs that Betty Crocker is going to subjugate humanity, who are hysterical and reactionary and, coincidentally, right.

Damn. Betty fucking Crocker. Truth is stranger than fiction.

He comes and sits beside me. I can't help but watch him a bit. I've gotten the sense that Karkat is a really tactile sort of guy. I catch him stroking the grain of wood, or the marble in a pillar. I saw him trailing his hands through the leaves in my hallway forest, or through the water at the edge of the pools. When I wake up before him, I watch him sleep sometimes. You know, real Twilight shit. Whatever. He squirms in his sleep a lot, rubbing his skin against the chenille nest he's made by gathering every decadent blanket in my estate and adding them to his futon one by one. He just likes touching things, and likes experiencing the world through touch. When he sinks into my plush soft hug couch, he does that same little squirm and rubs the palms of his hands on the cushion beneath him. 

It's pretty cute.

He watches the TV with me for a bit. Linda is trying to express her theory that the Empress only _looks_ human, that if we were to X-ray and MRI her and whatever else, we'd find all sorts of weird internal differences. Her male coworkers get into a pretty hilarious argument about whether Her Alien Majesty proves Jesus Loves You or not. Karkat finds the remote and shuts the whole thing off.

"Hey," I mutter. Faint protest.

"Okay," he says, turning in the couch to look at me. "Look." He takes a really deep breath. "You need to leave your house."

I snort. "Oh shit, somebody just got off the phone with Rose."

"Shut up! I -- even if I did, it's besides the point, because she's fucking right! You're completely isolated up here, it's fucking pathetic."

"So?"

"So..." His brow furrows and he starts sputtering. He wasn't expecting that. I think he was hoping I'd be all offended. No way, I'm not pathetic. He's always so defensive, it's like he expects it in other people. Joke's on you, sucker. Can't shame the suicidally depressed. I fucking win this round, booyeah.

"Okay," I say, when he doesn't seem able to find a rejoinder in time. I grab the remote out of his hand and turn the TV back on. "Glad we got that sorted."

"Fuck you!" He dives at me, wrestles the remote from my hand, turns the TV off again, and then hurls the thing all the way across the room. I hear a snap and then several somethings all clattering across the floor.

I turn and fix him with morose eyes. "You gonna replace that?"

"Eat my shit," he snaps, big brown eyes flashing. "Look. Okay. Look." He brings up his phone. He thumbs through it and I watch his brow all scrunched up in in concentration. Fuck me, he can be so goddamn cute. I picked him up that night for a reason. There's something about him. He's totally gorgeous, but there's something else to it, too. It's like when you look at someone and get this feeling like damn, that person is my type. Before I saw Karkat Vantas, I'm not sure I ever saw someone who was _really_ my type before.

That probably makes no sense.

Karkat flips the phone and holds it out to me.

_DAVE STRIDER HOLED UP IN ESTATE WITH EXOTIC MALE LOVER._

_Despite how many cameras got a shot of billionaire film director Dave Strider entering his estate with a young, male middle eastern hottie on the 17th, not a soul has seen either of them emerge from the love nest. Food delivery has been constant, and lights are on in the estate, but_

The article cuts off there and I'm not really motivated to scroll down and see more speculation about my love nest. "Okay, but that's the Daily Mail," I say. "They're trashy as fuck."

" _Everyone_ is reporting on it," Karkat says. "Rose sent me links. People are just making up their own vomit-inducing versions of what's going on in your life! Don't you at _least_ want to get out there and tell your _own_ story?"

I think about it.

Yeah, I mean. Yeah. I care, kind of. I wish I could say I didn't. I wish I could say that I hate my fans and followers and the people who surround me so much that the fact that they're writing their own chapter in my carefully curated life story is just like, pft, whatever man. But I've spent just _so_ much time and effort controlling my image and my legend that the feeling that it's out there doing its own thing without my finger on its pulse makes me kind of crazy.

But then I think about what it would take to get it back under control, and I just...

"Maybe I'm tired of telling stories," I say, and fuck, but I sound fucking _tired_.

Karkat screws his face up like he's about to yell at me, but I think he just can't find any words to yell, because he goes slack a second later and drops his eyes from mine. I can tell that his own silence is frustrating him because he keeps closing and opening his fists like he's milking them or something. "Well," he finally says, and his voice is so defensive it basically has a fence made of tigers around it, "maybe you need to find a new story?"

I laugh. "Is this the part where you suggest I make 'good' movies again?" I ask. "Because I'm pretty sure we went through this and I explained why that's impossible. Good movies require a good director and I'm poser trash."

He does this little growl under his breath, like a really angry puppy. He snaps his gaze to mine. His hands make a decision and assume the 'about to throw a punch' position. "Wow. Just look at you! It sure must be nice to pretend that you don't give a fuck about anything! You can't do anything right and can't have a real fucking conversation with anybody but who cares, right? Nothing matters, blah blah, a bunch of nihilistic rancid steaming horseshit that's just shorthand for whatever, bro, I'm just too fucking cool for this! Right?"

Honestly, it's kind of a slap in the face. I snap back like it was _actually_ a slap in the face and my head just whirls for a second. "No, look, wait a second. That's definitely a whole lot of bullshit because, uh, I'm pretty sure you actually witnessed the effects of my caring way too _much_? Caring my way through a whole bottle of pills?"

"Oh, fuck off. That's not caring, that's quitting."

"Fuck off, yourself!" I'm actually angry, now. I get up off the couch and run a hand through my hair. "It's not _quitting_ , it wasn't about -- it was just about -- look, there's literally no fucking point of being alive, okay? It's that simple!"

"Wow," Karkat says. He folds his arms and glares up at me. "You sure have got it all figured out. You care so much that you don't care about anything and since you don't care about anything what's the point?"

"That's not it!" He's being willfully fucking ignorant. He has to be! There's no way he doesn't get it, there's no way he could just be so stupid! "It's not that I don't care, it's that _they_ don't care, it's that--"

I throw up my hands and stalk away. I can't explain it. I can't put it into words. I can't do it for Rose and I sure as _shit_ can't do it for this little hooker who thinks he fucking knows me.

I get halfway out the room, though, and it hits me. It hits me like an anvil in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon and knocks me off my feet and I fall. I actually physically fall onto my knees. When does this end? I'm thinking. When does it end, when does it end? I can't do this anymore. I _can't_.

This is it, I think. This is the moment my life actually becomes some extremely stupid Oscarbait movie. I'm about to start crying and discover my true self in the arms of the poor third world child prostitute I rescued. I'm played by Ryan Gosling and Karkat is played by Dev Patel because he's the only regionally appropriate semi A-lister in the world. They both get the Academy Award. Standing ovation at the premiere. Ryan has this bit in his acceptance speech about visibility and mental illness in media.

And then I just... stop. Because right now, while my hands clutch to the carpet and I'm shaking and I'm struggling to breathe under the weight of my own bullshit, I'm actually creating _more bullshit_ to suffocate myself with. Telling _more stories_. I realize that, even more than that night in Ibiza, I am having an _actual mental breakdown right now_ and I'm still wrapping it up in Dave Strider inanity.

I have a problem.

I have a fucking problem and I need to stop.

"Shit," Karkat is saying, and I can just imagine him fluttering around in a panicked ball of energy. "Shit. Shit." I hear him dialing his phone. Calling Rose. Rose is going to fly down here when she hears this and

I

can't

look

at

her

"Stop," I manage to say. "Stop, don't call Rose."

" _Uhh_ , I think there isn't really a choice right now!"

"Please, please, fuck, Karkat, please don't call Rose." I let myself fall all the way to the ground. I try to relax, try to breathe. I can't breathe. The fakeness of my life is crushing me and I can't breathe.

" _What the fuck else am I supposed to do?_ "

I need something real. I had Rose. I ruined Rose. And without that, without that piece of reality tethering me to my life, I really can't do this. I really can't.

This is why I've been avoiding things. This is why I haven't left my house. I never left the post-credits scenes after all. The second that I go out there, the second I put on my shades and my suits and become the character I've created again, it all just starts over. I won't be able to get away from it and I'll just hollowly shuffle through everything until the Empress has her way and life on Earth is over and gone.

I need to _connect_.

Two and a half weeks ago, I'd reached out for Karkat, the sexy little hooker in the tight booty shorts. I'd paid him to pretend to be my boyfriend. It had been a huge mistake, because that was just more fake shit.

I make myself sit up. Karkat's eyes are terrified. I reach out and grab his hand.

He doesn't flinch, doesn't cringe, and doesn't pull away. He grips my hand tight.

I think this might be a moment that I'll look back on later. Karkat squeezed my hand, and it saved me.

"I can't do it," I say, and there's a bit of terrified, wounded little boy in my voice. The kid from Foster Camp. The kid who met Rose under the big tree. "Karkat. I can't _do_ it. I've built up this stupid bullshit personality for all of these people, and _none_ of them know me. The only way to leave this fucking house is to be him, be the big shot Hollywood baller, and I'm so fucking _alone_. I'm trapped inside of that asshole! And he's so fucking good at being me that _I'm_ just stuck in here and no one..." Fuck. Oh god. Here it comes. "Nobody loves me."

"Shit," Karkat says.

Silence reigns. It buzzes and sings in our ears. I think I might die. I'm so embarrassed. I'm so fucking stupid. I'm too old for this teenage bullshit. But Karkat doesn't let go of my hand.

"Shit," he says again. "Fuck. Okay. I -- listen, I just..."

Yeah, that's about the proper reaction for this shit.

I can't stand this shit, holy fuck. I start talking just so that words are happening. "It's just like... do you ever feel like you're living the wrong fucking life? Like somewhere you took a wrong turn and every single day, every single second, everything around you, it just feels like it's not _right_. Like who you actually are is like, I don't know, off somewhere else, and... and is just... and you just can't connect with him, the real you, and none of these people you meet are part of who you _are_ , part of the life you _should_ be living, and..."

I think silence was a lot better than this so I snap my mouth shut. But I'm not shaking anymore. That's something.

Here's something else:

Karkat gets this really weird look on his face. His brow furrows. He opens his mouth and then closes it. He shakes his head. "Yeah," he says, finally, and the depth of meaning and emotion in his words hits me right in the core.

I totally believe him.

"Oh," I say.

I figure this doesn't happen every often. This moment where, desperate and at the end of your rope, you blurt out the keystone at the centre of why you think you might actually be _legit_ crazy, and then... yeah.

"Okay," I say.

Karkat squeezes my hand again. Very gently, he pulls away. Like, he does it in this way that I can tell he isn't withdrawing because he's freaked out or done with my shit. His hand is just cramped and sweaty. I kind of chuckle and it's maybe a _little_ hysterical, but that's not the worst thing in the world. Karkat runs the hand through his hair.

"All right, look," he says. "I, um." He shakes his head. We sure are two awkward motherfuckers! "Okay, listen, I'm going to call Rose. I'm going to tell her that you still need time but I think we're making some real progress?"

That makes it sound like he's my shrink. I snort.

"Yeah," I say. "Okay, bro. Give your report to Dr. Lalonde."

He gives me a sharp little look, and I actually smile.

"Fuck you," he says, with no real heat. "And then I'm going to tell her that we'll talk about this more tomorrow. Okay? For tonight, I'll... put a movie on your screen and we can watch that and... I don't know, fuck, we'll just wing it, okay?"

"Gonna be hard to make that thing work when you broke my remote, asshole," I say.

" _Okay_?" he presses.

I avert my eyes. "Okay," I mutter. I feel like I'm the kid and he's the adult. I feel like I'm being managed like I'm a wayward little critter.

And I feel -- at least a little bit -- that Karkat Vantas might legitimately care whether I live or die.

I manage to stand up, and I don't think I'm imagining some of the weight is gone.


	13. Interlude 4: April, 1990 // You Get So Lonely, Dave.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

He had his head tilted against the glass like he was sleeping or bored, his Walkman was blasting LL Cool J, and his aviator shades probably blocked any view of his eyes, but he still couldn't help but think that someone was definitely watching him and thinking -- damn. That kid is wigging out right now.

He'd spent the last four hours gazing out the window and trying not to be impressed as the landscape went from southern badlands to vast, green New England forest. He'd never been on a plane before, and from so high above, the world looked like something from an atlas. Something beyond his experience or frame of reference. Their circling descent into Albany International Airport was like dropping into a beautiful sleepy suburb or something, compared to back home, and he felt like he was walking through a dream as he wrestled his beat up, overstuffed backpack down from the carry-on compartment and made his way through the terminal.

It was his first time on a plane, sure. And that was _crazy_. But crazier was that he hadn't paid for his own ticket. That someone had gone to the mat for him and convinced his current slap-happy foster father to make the trip.

That he was about to see Rose.

Three long-ass years, since he'd hugged her for the last time at Foster Camp.

He kept readjusting his grip on his backpack, trying to make sure it was all convincingly casual-like, draped carelessly over one shoulder. Running a hand through his sun-bleached hair, which he'd started wearing like a Beatle because he thought it was funny, and had to be pretty carefully styled. Straightening the lines of his shirt, his jeans, pushing up his aviator specs, smoothing out his expression. His heart banged in his head like the bassline on his Walkman and his eyes scanned and zeroed in and scanned again, looking for her. He wanted to look cool as a fucking cucumber when he saw her. He wanted to flash this perfect smirk he'd practiced, raise his chin a bit, and say "hey." Just "hey." Re-sling his backpack.

Watch her melt? Swoon.

Maybe. Didn't sound like Rose, really. It might actually be kind of a turn off, so, in truth, he didn't know. He just wanted to see how she _reacted_. He wasn't the same kid anymore. He wanted her to know that.

There were too many fucking strangers in an airport terminal, he realized, frustrated. He had no idea where Rose was. He slid his headphones back around his neck so that he might hear her voice. Every time he saw a blonde girl, he panicked, blood rushed in his ears, he mentally practiced his smirk/chin-raise/"hey" combo ten times, and then she turned and it wasn't Rose at all. It was...

There was a hand on his shoulder. "Dave?" His heart did a fucking swan dive into his left foot. He turned around.

Oh.

Holy shit.

He'd been looking for a blonde wisp of a girl wearing an old t-shirt. So, yeah. Even if he'd seen Rose, his eyes would have slipped right past her.

Firstly, because while he knew that he'd shot up like a beanstalk, he hadn't counted on how much it had widened the gap in height between them. And secondly, because he definitely _hadn't_ been looking for a curvy, milk-pale goth princess with black-and-purple hair, black lipstick, heavy black eye make-up, frilly black-and-purple clothes, chunky combat boots, and jewelry all in spikes and silk roses.

Like... damn.

She'd talked about writing poetry, novels about wizards, witches, and haunted houses, and song lyrics. She'd written that she was really into British bands like Sisters of Mercy and The Stone Roses. She'd even mentioned an interest in fashion. Somehow he hadn't really connected all of it.

He hadn't really imagined Rose embracing her own form of alt-culture.

He didn't smirk, or raise his chin, or re-sling his backpack, or say "hey." His eyes swept up and down her body, now all hips and thighs and pear-shaped sexiness. He felt heat in his cheeks and was glad beyond _belief_ for his fucking shades. His fingers clenched on the strap of his pack. "Jesus," he said. The words just came without his input. "Your fucking hair!"

She still had that same smile. Small and knowing. "You'll need to watch your mouth in front of my father," she said. On the last word, her smile turned to a grimace.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice higher than it had been since it had dropped _years_ ago. Come the fuck on!

She just rolled her eyes, took his hand, and tugged him after her, threading through the crowd.

He followed her. All his practiced chill evaporated now that she was actually in front of him. He watched the chains bounce at her hips, the way her hair still bobbed cheerfully when she moved, the small fingers linked with his.

He'd missed her so much that it threatened to close up his throat.

Rose's current foster father, the architect of this whole outing, smiled and effused and insisted on hugging Dave. He drove a fancy fucking car with a partition, which he solicitously rolled up so that he and Rose could talk in private. Dave's beat up backpack looked almost comically out of place in the trunk.

Rose straightened her headband of spikes and black silk roses. "How was your flight?"

Dave fucking _struggled_ to be cool. Actual, physical Rose was something strange and wonderful and heady and it had been _so long_. He'd been through four foster families and three cities since he'd seen her last. He'd worked long hours at a construction place, saving money for his phone calls to New York. He'd grown six inches. He'd missed her to death, but he didn't quite realize how badly until right now. Letters and phone calls had created an illusion of closeness that was shattered by seeing how much she had changed. And how little.

"Oh, you know," he said, shrugging one shoulder. LL Cool J rapped with conviction, tinny at the edge of his hearing through his headphones. "It was high and there were birds, presumably. Clouds. The usual."

She arched one eyebrow, tilted her head, and gave him _A Look_. He couldn't _remember_ actually seeing the look before, but it was _so_ familiar that he actually kind of snorted laughing and tried to swallow it.

She sighed. "Oh, I see how it is," she said. "I'd hoped that your new stoicism was just an illusion of long distance, but I can work with it."

 _'Work with it?'_ He gave her what he hoped was a suitably blank look."Ruh-roh."

"We're going to need to take some time of out these two weeks to ascertain your Myers-Briggs personality type. I like the model quite a bit, myself. Briggs and her daughter overcame considerable difficulty to publicize their theories, and it's all very well founded on Jungian psychology. Jung's ideas stand the test of time much better than Freud's."

"Holy fuck. What's happening? Yeah, this is Earth. Paging Miss Lalonde?"

Rose's face fell. She shot a look towards the partitioned driver's seat. "You should call me Susan where he can hear," she said, shaking her head slightly. "He has... _opinions_ about our other names."

Since when had anyone's _opinion_ bothered Rose about anything? But Dave supposed that when an opinion paid for your best friend to cross the country, drove a fucking beamer, and talked about wanting to adopt you, you got a little jumpy about it.

He sat back in his seat. "Yeah, well. Hate to disappoint you there, Sigmund, but they did that dumbass personality test on us at school this year. For like, I don't know, job placement or something? INFP, read it and weep. I think I'm supposed to be a social worker or something, so let's all take a second and get a really good chuckle at _that_ irony."

Rose frowned and shook her head. "Hm," she said, in that little way she had. She tapped her chin with a long fingernail. It was painted black, with small purple stars. "No, I don't think so. Introvert? Hardly. You're an ENFP."

They turned down a rocky road, and the car began to jostle furiously back and forth. Dave tried half-heartedly not to notice how Rose bounced around. How certain parts of her bounced around. His heart was locked in a vice grip.

"I'm not exactly party fucking central over here, you know," he muttered, slouching in his seat.

"I know," she said, and the look she gave him made his insides feel like a hand was squeezing them. "But you get so _lonely_ , Dave."

Fuck.

He turned away. And then, for good measure, put his headphones back on. His fave song, with the sample from the Wizard of fucking Oz, god _bless_ you, LL Cool J, was playing. Something about the serious-but-not, goofy-but-not tone that usually appealed to him so much made his stomach feel sick, so he fast forwarded to something else and didn't look back at Rose until they parked.

Stupid. He didn't have all the time in the world. But if he said anything at all, he was going to say something really, really bad. Like, maybe, _I love you._

The house was a fucking mansion. Rose's foster dad was once again way too cool and said that no, it was totally _fine_ if Dave stayed in Rose's room, he trusted her completely and he could tell that Dave was a good kid. Dave felt like a bad kid as he watched Rose's ass the whole way up the stairs. It wasn't about the fact that she'd gotten hot, he told himself, and it was the absolute truth, because he'd been sick in love with her for a long time before. Rose's foster dad was a dumbass, he privately thought, because they were fifteen and the two of them hooking up had been inevitable for just about forever, hadn't it?

Rose's room was practically wallpapered with those fuzzy velvet colouring book art prints. Rose -- or someone else -- had filled absolutely every single one of them with a rich spectrum of colour. Many had been edited with black marker to give them a more sinister tone. There was an air mattress already laid out on the floor. A stereo was playing some whiny goth punk quietly. The ceiling reminded Dave of when he was six and his foster mom had put up the glow in the dark stickers to entertain her bevy of fosterlings at night, only Rose's was all done in paint, once again in bright, rich colours highlighted with thick black. Dave's eyes were drawn to one corner, though, and his eyes went round.

"Holy fucking shit," he said. "You have a computer?"

Rose glanced at it. "An old Apple 2. It doesn't do much," she said. "But I can play Oregon Trail. That's something."

"Dude." He didn't know what else to say, because he just started getting frustrated. Did Rose not know how lucky she was? His own current foster parents hadn't even gotten him new clothes for the school year, just a quick trip to the ole Sally Ann. How could she be so flippant?

She looked at him and then looked away. She dropped onto her bed, blinking up at the ceiling. "I know what you're thinking," she said.

"You read minds now?"

"Only when they're obvious and easy to read." She sighed. "Look, Dave... I know I seem ungrateful. Things are just... weird, here. I'm grateful that the Forrests paid for you to come and visit. That's what matters, and if I could get a chance to see you out of this, it's all worth it. But... they're weird. Just... trust me, all right?"

He swallowed down something really unflattering. 'Weird' didn't mean shit. Before Child Protective Services had come, he'd had one foster mom who'd locked him in a closet when he didn't clear his plate. 'Weird' was a small price to pay for generous, caring people who gave you free computers and velvet posters to fill in.

He wouldn't put his foot in his mouth. He wouldn't let himself ruin this chance, these precious two weeks with Rose, to be with her, to talk to her, to see her, and to somehow show her that he wasn't still a shitty snot-nosed kid and was actually someone worthy of paying attention to.

He just kind of walked around the room, instead. Getting a sense of who Rose was, now. Connecting the changes in her-on-the-phone and her-in-her-letters to the her-in-the-flesh. A vase of black roses, all silk. Five rows of books in her bookshelf, mostly horror and fantasy. A long line of tapes filled with a bunch of longhaired British men who looked like women. Dave was a lot cuter than any of them. Definitely.

She had a cork board covered in photos. They were... really, really good. Black and white, mostly, with amazing composition and framing. The lines were crisp and the focus was all flawless. He felt a surge of jealousy. He'd started playing around with cameras himself, but he'd found it easier to take intentionally bad photos than good ones like this. Whenever he tried, all he could see were the flaws. It was a whole lot easier to "accidentally" put his forefinger in a shot of a troll doll's terrible hideous face and neon hair than it was to capture the way the wind danced in the chimes just outside his window.

Rose was in a lot of the pictures. Rose smiling, Rose laughing. Rose with her feet up on bleachers, reading a book. Rose holding all ten fingers up in front of her face, eyes large and heavy with makeup. Rose hunched over an ancient typewriter.

The photographer had just... frozen her in time. Like, her spirit, or something. They captured the essence of who Rose was. Full of life and intellect and confidence. Living always for herself, doing what she wanted, never falling over for anyone else. It was everything that he loved about her.

There was one of Rose with her arm around another girl her age, also wearing black lipstick and raccoon eyes and lace gloves. She had long dark hair and thick rimmed glasses. Rose was looking at her with this look in her eyes, something that he hadn't seen before, but...

Dave pulled the photo off the board. 

"Who's this?" he asked, showing her the photo.

She smiled. It was a tiny, shy little smile. It was a smile that wasn't meant for Dave. "Oh. Um, that's Cathy. She's the one who took all the photos. She's good, right?"

"Yeah," Dave said. "She's really good." Did his voice sound strangled, or did he just feel that way?

"I can't wait for you to meet her. She, um. She's my girlfriend."


	14. I Made a Million Dollars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

I'm lying on my back and looking up at the stars, only they're not the right stars.

My hands brush across soft grass heavy with dew. The night sings with something that isn't quite crickets. The moon hangs above the trees --

It's not the right moon, either.

It's all angry red and steel grey, and for a second I think, well, shit, this is it. A meteor is going to hit Earth and put us all out of our misery before the Empress can do anything. But it just hangs suspended like a moon is supposed to, and I feel... I feel a weird kind of... fondness for it?

"Dude," I hear my voice say, "I've gotta take you up there to see it."

I'm not alone. Someone close by my ear snorts quietly. "I've already seen it, you fucking nimrod. I watched your whole life on viewports, remember?"

"Well, yeah," I say. "But there's a difference between seeing it and _seeing it_ , right? Like, you gotta see the nakkodile stock market and the scratched Beat Mesa and some of the rad quest areas and shit."

"I've seen all that shit, you globe-fondling asshole! If you want to really wow me with some new and exciting romance, take me to Jane's moon, or something."

I'm laughing as I turn on my side, and my heart starts pounding, because the dude I'm flirting with -- isn't human. Blood red eyes look out at me from harshly yellow sclera from a grey face. There are horns and fangs and 

I

know him?

And love him.

"I'll fondle your globes, alright," I say, wiggling my eyebrows, and his eyes glimmer with amusement as he reaches for me. His hands are on my face and there are claws, too, but he's stroking my cheek so gently and I know him somewhere deep, I know him like he's a part of me, that missing piece I've always been looking for...

"Hey," he says, but his lips don't move.

I go to reply, but my lips won't move.

"Hey, asshole."

I blink. My eyes are sticky with sleep and the sun is fucking blasting down into my eyes and I groan and go to roll over and nearly fall onto the patio. "Whthfuck?" I groan. I raise a hand to shield my eyes from the sun and Karkat is looking down at me with his brow all furrowed and his eyes

A needle inside of me skips on a record and for a moment I feel like I'm understanding something for the first time, and then, just as quick, it's fucking gone, leaving me frustrated and thwarted and empty, like I'd just missed my connection to somewhere important, like two ships just passed in the night and I was supposed to change from one to the other and now my opportunity is gone.

"You snore when you sleep on your back," Karkat says.

"Cool," I say, voice still thick with sleep. I slowly remember that I was sitting by the pool, listening to some old tunes, debating getting in the water and shocking my system with the cold. I wanted some clarity, because I was trying to make a decision.

Oh.

"Are we going, or not?" Karkat asks impatiently. "Because if we're going, I really need to call Rose and explain. She's going to fucking tear me to pieces of she finds out from the tabloids."

It's December 12th and I've spent the last three days going back and forth on accepting an invite to a big Hollywood Christmas party. I've gone back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I've been pro-conning it in my head all day. It's come down to something like this:

Pros:

\- Literally anybody who's anybody is going to be there, full of Christmas gossip and all kinds of exciting scandal, so me being disgorged from my self imposed exile isn't going to be as big of news as it would be any other time.  
\- I've honestly felt a bit better every day since my total mental breakdown on the 1st and I think maybe I actually can handle it.  
\- I have to do it eventually.

Cons:

\- Fuck I don't fucking want to fuck fuck fuck.

"Ugh," I groan, and run a hand through my hair. I grab my shades off of the side table where I'd apparently put them like a dumbass when I started dozing and slide them onto my face. Immediately, it stops feeling like I'm being stabbed in the brain through my eyes. I should text Rose about this. Holy shit, Rose, I'm using sunglasses for their intended purpose.

My phone has fallen to the patio. Karkat produces it for me when I start fishing around for it. He hands it to me wordlessly, and I check my messages. A ton from my PA and my publicist, a couple from other Hollywood types.

One from Rose.

TT: Just so you know, Dave, I rejected an invitation to the party tonight. I won't be there, if that makes the decision you're doubtless labouring over any easier.  
  
It kind of just makes me feel shitty, because Rose loves Christmas and loves the glitz and glam and drama of Hollywood Christmas shindigs. She loves being a goddamn fantasy author who not only can rub elbows with movie stars, but is considered a sought after and valued guest at their parties. She loves that she's turned 'your weird gothy lesbian aunt who loves cats and Lovecraft' into an admired and imitated aesthetic. She's probably bummed as fuck that she's not there tonight.

And that decides me, I guess. I'm not saying the best reason to make a big decision is because you feel guilty. Just that knowing that Rose has begged off such a big occasion because she wants me to go overcomes some of my _fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_ and makes me feel like -- fuck it. Rip that band-aid off.

"Okay," I say, sitting up. "Okay. All right. We're gonna go."

For a second, Karkat looks terrified. He opens his mouth and I'm one hundred percent sure that he's going to start babbling about how utterly not ready he is to step into high society and stand in a room with people from his, I am learning, fucking embarrassing taste in movies. And it occurs to me that he's just a kid, a poor kid who'd been hooking in a party town before he'd gotten dragged all into my life, and this might be a little much for him.

So I go to tell him just like... hey, you don't have to come if you don't want, nobody is forcing you, if _you're_ not ready, then...

But he clamps his mouth shut, takes a deep breath that makes his shoulders heave and his ribcage puff out, and he squares his chin up real good. "Fine," he says. "Fuck. Finally. I've been in America almost a month and haven't eaten anything but fucking take-out." And he turns and storms off. I indulge myself with watching his butt. Fuck, it's a great butt.

I mess with my phone a bit. Looking at Karkat's butt immediately after reminding myself that he's probably still an overwhelmed kid in way over his head and I really still don't know dick about him has made my head buzz a bit. So I kind of turn him, butt and all, over and over in my head.

I realize with a jolt of surprise that I wouldn't fuck him.

Not that he's offering or anything, but if he did, which is absurd, he wouldn't, but if he _did_ , I wouldn't. I prod at that, trying to see if it's just me lying to myself, but it holds up.

With one glaring, painful, pulsing polyp of an exception, I actually generally... don't really have sex with people I actually like. The shrink Rose sent me to, the one that prescribed me my own murder weapon, said that I use frequent, almost compulsive sex as a way to desperately seek out intimacy, but my own attempts to connect are thwarted by my fear of opening up. That sounds pretty much accurate. He's a good shrink, after all. It's not his fault that I hate talking about myself so much that I closed up like an angry clam. Which is pretty funny, actually, since he also says that I long for real closeness but actively shut people out. Thanks for your insights, doc, now watch that shit _in action_ , motherfucker. 

So. Like. With that one painful pus-filled gaping wound of an exception, I guess I generally kind of avoid getting involved with anyone I actually care about. Because God fucking knows, I guess, that if I let them see enough of the hilarious swirling abyss of Strider in my head, which is just inevitable if I let them past the gates...

I don't know.

They'll see just how whack this shit is and get right the fuck out of there.

So. Is that why I wouldn't fuck Karkat?

I'm not sure. Kind of, maybe, but... not quite. It doesn't feel quite right. I mean, after all, he's definitely seen how low I can go. How amazingly skilled I am at limboing under the bar of self respect to punch myself in the nads. There aren't really any new depths the guy can see me fall to.

There's something more to it than that, but I can't place it. I want him to like me. I really... enjoy some of the time we spend together. He's been a good companion. I'm glad he's been here. He's kept me alive. And I'm a dirty old man and think that he's a fucking ten.

But I wouldn't fuck him.

That sticks with me as I call my PA. He sounds flustered and shocked to hear from me. I tell him to send a limo. I call the guy at the gate and tell him to let them up. If I'm going out, I'm doing it big. Also, if there's a limo waiting in front of my fucking door, I'm way less likely to wimp the fuck out again.

Then I text Rose.

TG: yeah  
TG: thats cool  
TG: i decided to go  
TT: Oh, Dave. That's wonderful!  
TG: its ok sure  
TT: I'm sure you'll have a lovely time.  
TG: actually im pretty sure im gonna regret it like fuck but hey thanks for the well wishes there captain optimism  
TT: Optimism.  
TT: Well.  
TT: That's certainly nothing I've ever been accused of before.  
TG: you shouldnt have cancelled dude  
TG: i know you love this shit  
TT: I do love this shit, but I love you more.  
TT: I  
TT: I'm sorry, I misspoke.  
TT: What I mean is  
TG: rose  
TG: its cool  
TG: i know what you mean  
TG: i love you too ok  
TT: Please, try and enjoy yourself.  
TT: And, if I may suggest, don't indulge in any of your favoured substances?  
TG: haha ok  
TG: i will be as sober as a maiden aunt  
TG: a really boring one  
TG: and by sober i mean no drugs because fuck if im getting through a dumb fucking hollywood party without alcohol  
TT: Oh, dear.  
TT: Well, I look forward to reading about your adventures dancing on tables in tomorrow's headlines.  
TG: cool  
TG: gonna go do my hair and shit so the embarrassing photos look cute bbl  
  
I put my phone in my pocket, but it buzzes again on my way into the house.

TT: You sound better.  
TT: I'm glad.  
  
A little smile flutters across my lips. Yeah. Well. I feel better. I do. Not better as in "I feel better!" like everything is cool. But better as in "I felt like a steaming pile of hot garbage and now I feel like the garbage has maybe cooled somewhat and stopped letting off that fucking stench."

And better is better.

Karkat doesn't have anything nice to wear. He's too petite to borrow anything of mine; he'd look like a kid dressed in its dad's clothes, which is a really awkward thought considering that I've put my tongue in his mouth, so I swerve hard. What Karkat does have is natural good looks. Like. Damn, he's fucking cute. I call my PA and ask him to bring by a few pairs of designs jeans and some casual-chic style tees, all in smalls. There isn't enough time to tailor him anything, but I think he could pull off that casual-chic look really good. I hope he doesn't take offense to charity. I just don't want him to be embarrassed in his ratty old clothes or his raver/hooker gear at a nice party.

I think about that while the showerhead blasts my back. I don't want him to be embarrassed. I don't care about what I look like being seen with him. I just want him to be, you know. Comfortable. I rinse my hair and think about that. I get distracted thinking about it. About Karkat. About how... nice it's been, having the same person around me every single day, about how there's no bullshit between us, about how he gets that little line between his eyebrows, about how fucking dazzling his smile is, about how he has never once said something fake to impress me...

The water runs cold. I hear a yelp and then an absolute fucking _tirade_ go on all the way from the other bathroom. I'm laughing to myself when I shut the water off.

I don't actually meet my PA at the door for the clothes. I'm going to face everyone in a few hours, but I want to just... wait until I'm ready. Do it all at once. Karkat gets it instead, and comes into my room -- our room, I guess, because he's still sleeping on the futon, which is now practically a fucking chenille nest -- with a huge load of clothes in his arms and a grimace on his face.

"None of this is going to fit," he complains, looking it over. "Clothes never fucking fit me."

"Okay," I say. "But. You can't exactly wear short shorts and nipple shirts to a party."

"Shut your impudent fucking mouth!" Karkat snaps, and he's blushing very charmingly. "I didn't bring that shit with me, anyway! It was work clothes, okay?"

I turn away while he tries shit on. I hear cloth sliding over his skin, and the temptation to look is pretty strong. The fact that I wouldn't fuck him doesn't mean that I'm not attracted to him. Not at all. It's not the same kind of attraction that I felt that day on the boardwalk when we met, all hazy-brain and thumping-heart and rock-hard-cock. It's softer. And stronger.

And I don't like thinking about it, in all honesty, especially not when he's changing right behind me, so I clear my throat and just talk so that words are happening instead of the parade of naked Karkats in my head.

"How did you get in that line of work, anyway?"

Damn. Could there possibly be any less appropriate question?

"That's none of your fucking business," Karkat snaps. I can't even be offended, because it's true. I'm so curious it burns, and get more curious every day, because Karkat is smart and shockingly good with people and if it were just about money, how did he get from Morocco to Ibiza? But that's his story, not mine. And I know all about stories that you'd rather not tell.

But that gives me an idea. "Uh, sorry," I say. I straighten my tie to give myself something to do. "Here, you can ask me anything and I'll answer. Make up for it."

I expect him to say something like _fuck you, what would I want to know about you, anyway?_ But to my surprise, he immediately comes out with something, as if it were just waiting in the chamber for an excuse for him to get the shot off.

"What happened with you and Rose before you came to Ibiza?"

My heart seizes up. I remember her lips under mine, her hair fine and soft between my fingers, her body warm and real against me. "Anything but that," I say, sounding strangled. That night -- I can't share that with anyone. Not the fiery passion, not the crushing guilt, not how much I'd wanted to believe that she and I were finally connecting the way we were always meant to, and not how much I fucking hated myself for being weak enough to go there.

Karkat sighs. "Fine." After a pause, and the sound of fabric moving, and me trying not to picture his nut-brown skin and failing, he says, "Your wikipedia page says you grew up in Texas. It doesn't say anything about your family."

Hah. He's google spying on me. I find that kind of... charming? Nice. Like... damn, Karkat, you care about me enough to type 'Dave Strider' into a search engine and hit the enter key and _click on the results_. You really do care.

"Yeah," I say. I've kept a real tight lid on my past, but... sure. I know Karkat doesn't have a mother, at least. He let that slip on the day we got here. So... what can it hurt, opening up just a crack? "Don't have one. Family, that is. And I don't mean like, oh they all died tragically or whatever. As far as I or anyone else knows, I just plain haven't got one."

"Oh," he says.

"Yeah," I say. "Nobody's ever been able to tell me dick about them. And I mean -- I've tried. Gave it the old college try, assuming college is pouring millions of fucking dollars into DNA testing and whatnot, which I think it probably isn't, so I guess I gave it the old bored, unfulfilled billionaire try, instead. We turned up some boring ass stuff, like... parents were both white, for instance. One hundred percent whitey up in here, that's me. Mayonnaise king. One of them was a redhead and one was a blonde. They think my dad was even taller than I am. No genetic disorders, which is nice." I shake my head. "But fucking _nothing_ that could help me find them. No similar genomes logged anywhere. No potential cousins... no potential ancestors... fucking nothing." I sigh. "Big waste of a couple million bucks."

"Fucking geez," Karkat says. And then, more quietly, "Uh, if it makes you... I don't know, I just... I'm the same, actually. No million dollar genome bullshit, we're not all fucking swimming around in gold like Scrooge fucking McDuck, you privileged fucking dickbrain. But... you know, no family. No idea of who they might be. Just a big question mark."

I close my eyes. I try not to get all worked up about that. I try not to feel like I've found another of my kind, another person like me and Rose. I swallow. I open my mouth to get all fucking sappy.

"Okay." Karkat fills the silence before I can embarrass myself. "I think this shit fits. You can turn around."

I do.

And holy shit.

The jeans fit like a second skin, and the tee is just loose enough to emphasize how adorably tiny he is. I swallow hard.

So. Okay.

Maybe I'd fuck him, after all?

"Shit," I say. "The rags are gonna have a fucking _field day_ with you."


	15. And I Spend It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

There's a pair of Ray-Bans in with the pile of clothes for Karkat, and when I slip them onto my face, I feel armoured. Maybe it would have been better to completely shock everyone, and go in scuffed jeans, too-big t-shirt, and old lady reading glasses, but I like my suits.

They look good. I look good wearing them. And I'm pathetic enough to get off on wearing something so fucking expensive. I didn't have any parents, and now I'm decked out in loud, obnoxious Dolce. Without the shades, the suits are just pretentious. _With_ the shades, they're a fashion statement people have been trying and failing to jack from me for years.

And... I don't like people being able to see my eyes.

I smooth down the lines of my waistcoat, shrug on my blazer, check the fall of my cuffs both leg and arm, and I think I'm good to go.

I get the pleasure of seeing Karkat's eyes widen when I stride out into the foyer. He's sitting on the bottom step of the grand staircase, looking fucking delicious, and he has to tilt his head back to see me as I walk closer, eyes getting wider and wider every second.

The reason the look works so well is because my body is fucking _made_ for it. I'm lean and trim enough that I stray towards slender, and tall enough most people have to look up at me. I know that I look striking as fuck in a good suit. 

Or, as Rose would say, a grotesque suit, because I'm all in like, fucking orchid magenta purple. The colours are for irony. Like, look at how I can afford these suits you'd have to mortgage your house for, now watch me order them all in the subtle palette of true 8-Bit. And the second Karkat stops being... impressed (?) by the way I wear the thing, his face scrunches up and he sticks out his tongue. "Fuck, my eyes. It's like an eggplant took LSD, had a bad trip, threw up, and then they dyed that rag with what came out."

"Damn. That's hella descriptive. You should be a writer."

It was just a shitty little comment, flipped out of my mouth like any other that I don't take much time to think about, but Karkat flushes a bit and looks away. Shit. Did I hit on something, there?

"Yo --"

But he snaps his gaze back up to me and everything about him is suddenly ready for a fight and I know that I should leave well enough the fuck alone. "I'm fine," he snaps. "I'm just fucking _blind_ now, Jesus Christ."

I laugh.

Headlights filter through the frosted glass of the front doors. My heart starts going a little fast, and I take a deep breath. Okay. Okay. I can do this. I can totally do this. I swallow hard. "Looks like our ride is here," I say. I sound like I'm choking. That's fun.

Karkat shoots me a little glance. I barely have time to read his expression, but it stays burned onto my brain, and I think, maybe, it was something like... gentle? "Ugh," he says out loud, voice dripping with scorn. He jumps up to his feet. Damn, he looks good. "You'll be _fine_ , Captain Eyesore. Isn't this what you _do_?"

Yeah. Yeah, it sure is. For better or worse.

I offer Karkat my arm like we're in Pride & Prejudice or some other book Rose hated when she was a teenager and loves now. He looks at first my arm and then my face like they're both agents of chaos, shakes his head, and goes for the door on his own feet.

Hah. Fair enough, bro.

Despite his head start, I catch up to him in no time at all. He seems genuinely stymied by the sight of the white stretch limo, all tinted windows and elegance. The driver is already out of the cockpit and gives us a grave nod before opening the door for us. Karkat seems rooted in place.

I flash a grin at the driver, put my hand on the small of Karkat's back, and steer him to the door. He doesn't jerk away from my touch or even make a smart alec remark. He just follows my lead. I wait for the flush of heat to go through me, because I'd put my hand right above his sweet round ass, felt the swell of it. That's gotta be enough to get an awkward boner. But, sliding into the seats and hearing the door shut behind us, I feel something entirely different. Pride? I don't think so. But it suffuses me like a glow. Karkat didn't pull away. He trusted me enough to be touched.

I feel...

I don't know.

It's good, though.

Karkat is looking around the interior. His lips are parted and his big brown eyes are wide. He's taking in the climate control, the minibar, the glowing blue lights, the plush seating. "Wow," he says softly, and that's it. No obscene follow up at all.

"Seatbelt," I tell him, wiggling my eyebrows, and that gets me a little glare. Okay, world is still spinning. Good to know. But he buckles up like a trooper and I reach into the iced compartment beside me and pop the complimentary bottle of champagne.

I've been living like a fucking saint since we got back in LA. No drugs, no booze, no cigarettes. And, obviously, no sex. It kind of felt necessary after the way I fucking buried myself in vice back in Ibiza, right before I went truly off the fucking reservation. I don't think it was the wrong choice. I _do_ think the golden champagne looks beyond delightful as I fill one of the chilled flutes.

"Can I have some of that?" Karkat asks.

I give him a chastising look, a smile playing at my lips. "Are you twenty-one?"

"Oh, fuck you," Karkat snaps. "You'll pick me up, pay me to fuck you, and then smuggle me illegally into the country, but a glass of fucking bubbly is when you suddenly grow a conscience?"

Fair enough. Lord knows Spain and Morocco don't even really have legal drinking ages. And that _I_ was doing whatever I wanted when I was his age. Who am I to enforce my country's draconian rules? I shrug and pour another flute, handing it over to him.

And then we drink in relative silence. The champagne is heavenly, but I drink it slow. Despite what I told Rose, I don't really intend to get inebriated with _anything_ tonight. It's not really a firm promise to myself. I might change my mind. But right now, I'm thinking... I'm thinking I'd like to be in control of what goes down. Whatever that is.

"What are we telling people tonight?" Karkat asks eventually.

"Dad jokes?" I suggest.

His eyebrows pull down. "You know what I fucking mean, you intentionally dense heliotrope!"

I laugh, because damn, and then shake my head and sober up, because I know what he means. "I was kind of thinking 'nothing.'"

Karkat clearly doesn't like that suggestion. He scrunches again and he looks down into his mostly-full champagne flute. "If we say nothing," he says, "then they're just going to keep assuming whatever they fucking want. Which is _apparently_ that I'm your love slave from a third world country, if the gossip outlets are to be believed!"

"You're not?" I ask innocently.

He forges on. "The second anyone hears my accent, they're going to _know_ I'm not American. And then they'll be pouring over shit, trying to figure out who I am! If we give them nothing, it just encourages that shit!"

"Dude. Chill." His anxiety is making _me_ anxious. I can tell this is really bothering him, which is... weird. It's just weird, right? Because he didn't bring it up before this, and has always seemed disappointed when I turned down yet another Hollywood party invite. "They'll assume all sorts of dumb shit. We should give them mixed messages. Like, act like you're my little protege one second, and then like you're my adopted kid the next, and then we can flirt the next, and then--"

"You're not taking this seriously!" Karkat snaps. I shut up. He's all flushed red beneath his dark skin. He runs a hand through his mess of thick curls. I catch myself wondering what his hair feels like. And then, a second later, catch myself reminding myself that it's thick and coarse like steel wool, which I should know, because haven't I touched it before?

And I have, back at the hotel in Ibiza, but it felt _different_ from how I now remember thinking it feels, and my vision doubles, something is wrong, and it's like two tracks are playing at once and I can't grasp which one I should be listening to, and 

The moment passes, and I don't know where it came from.

"What if someone calls immigration?" Karkat asks, back in the real world. "What if they send me back?"

I have like six different fucking primo responses to that, and they're all _hilarious_. But Karkat's face combined with some lingering strangeness makes me swallow all of them. "You don't want go back?" I ask quietly. I mean to make it like... I don't know. Innocent question, right? Instead, it lands with this pathetic little twist, and I know that he hears what I unintentionally said:

I don't want him to leave.

"I --" He looks away. Clears his throat. I guess I shook whatever answer he had prepared right out of his mouth with my awkward bullshit, because he actually takes some time preparing a response, which is new for him. Finally, he gets this look on his face, this really screwed up, frustrated, _angry_ kind of look. "Of _course_ I don't want to go back!" He's all bristle. "I agreed to babysit your suicidal ass for a year just for a shot to come here! _Obviously_ I really don't want to end up back where I started just because _you_ were too busy playing cool guy to decide on a plausible explanation!"

For a second, it hurts. Bad, if I'm honest. He shot barbs like a poisonous critter and I got a face full of them. He sounds so fucking flippant, so firm on our association just being a means to an end, just being part of Rose's deal, like the month we've spent together is a job. And not a good one, like ice cream taster or puppy entertainer. A shitty one, like drain hair removal or the dude who has to oil Guy Fieri's goatee. I'm halfway through composing a really hurt -- and hurtful -- response when I realize that when critters shoot you full of darts, it's usually not an attack. It's a defense. 

That bit of wisdom makes me cool my jets.

"Look," I say. "If immigration shows up at our door, I will give them two million dollars and they'll leave smiling and swear to every department in the US Government that you're documented as fuck. Trust me. Deportation happens to poor people, not rich people, which is a lot of bullshit, but hey."

He doesn't say anything, but he deflates a little bit. The flashing challenge in his eye fades, and behind it I see the worry.

"The problem with coming up with a good story is that I know the fucking papers, dude. We could tell them the truth and like swear on an affidavit and swear on the Bible and provide sixty infallible documents proving it. They'd embrace the fun parts, ignore the less fun parts, and in a day the headline will be that I picked you up in some sex/suicide den and you gave me mouth to mouth and now I'm into autoerotic asphyxiation and keep you around for it." I shake my head. "Since they're gonna chase whatever story seems more fun, I'd just as rather give them lots of options so their message gets confused. Make sense?"

Cautiously, Karkat nods.

"Anyway, the fact that I'm taking you to the party makes it all way less exciting for them. They'll be excited to talk to you, for sure, but once you're out in public, it all seems on the up and up, which makes it boring. That's how you fuck with the press. You steer them away from what you don't want by making it seem boring, and give them a better story that props up what _you_ want reported on."

Karkat is giving me a funny look. He shakes his head when I stop talking. "That's how you do it," he says. "That's how you suck those poor assholes into seats to watch the 'I dropped a camera down a flight of stairs' highlight reel."

I grin. "Hell yeah," I say. For just a second, I'm proud of my career again. "Fuck, the media circus around the releases is as much a part of the whole thing as the films themselves."

He actually kind of looks impressed. I like that. But then he shakes his head and sighs. "Fuck," he says. "Your life must be so fucking exhausting."

It's such a direct hit that it sobers me right up. Yeah. Yeah, it sure fucking is.

In a flash, this whole night seems like a mistake. I thought I was ready to get back out there, and so I dressed myself up in my normal clothes, fed Karkat my normal plan of action, and just caught myself talking about my normal loop de loops of bullshit. I try to follow my line of logic back to when it was just me trying to protect Karkat and myself, and I get caught up in how convoluted it is, and how tethered it is to the shit that I'm actively trying to get away from. It's like a celtic fucking knot of insanity.

Because this is my life, and this is the way my life works, the exact moment I start second guessing myself about this entire evening is the moment the limo comes to a stop.

My heart is pounding and my stomach is twisting into another celtic knot. I pour the dregs of my champagne out. "Showtime," I say, trying to make it sound bright. It comes out sick.

Karkat hears it. Of course he does. "Um," he says. "Are you...?"

But there’s no time to think about this, because the door is opening and flashbulbs are already strobing. I put on my biggest signature Dave Strider smirk and step out.

The twenty metres from the roadside to the venue doors take half an hour to get through. I'm mobbed by photographers and reporters, and I honestly don't think I can actually recall a single specific word I said. I hadn't intended to so utterly dive beneath my persona when I hit the red carpet, but it's too damn easy to do so, and way too fucking hard to do anything else. Karkat is right at my side, and then he isn't, and then I can't even see him, but he always comes back right when I start to panic -- either on his behalf, or mine. When we're together, he keeps his answers short and sweet, leaving me to fill in the blanks.

When we leave the press behind and enter the hall, I'm expecting that this is when I can let my guard down a bit. After all, I know most of these people. We're on a first name basis. And it's fucking Christmas, for crying out loud.

But I'm two meet and greets in before I have to admit what I'd started to realize in the limo. This... was probably a mistake.

The third person we meet is Will Smith, and Karkat goes fucking crazy. Will is really just the nicest fucking guy. He's really good at handling fans without ever making them feel _handled_ , and Karkat just honestly seems totally enthused. I kind of hate to miss it, but it gives me a second to go deep into my own head while my body stands there, looking good and smiling.

I think maybe I'm going about this all wrong.

I've had this thing in my head since getting back to America. Since _before_ getting back to America. Since the second I woke up in my hospital bed and wasn't dead. I've had it that I need to rejoin this world, because this world is a part of my life, and since my life isn't over, I need to just resume it.

And maybe I can't.

I think maybe there isn't any way to come back here, to this. I mean... why did I _assume_ that there even was? You can't look at your life, realize that you hate living it, and then just... stroll back into it. I've had it going back and forth through my brain like a song that won't leave me alone that the endgame here is... I don't know. That 'better' means doing what I used to do?

I know that it sounds stupid. That's because it's utterly fucking stupid!

Karkat is looking up with me with eyes as wide as the fucking moon as Will walks off. "Holy shit," he hisses. "That was _Will fucking Smith._ "

I make my eyes wide to match his and my jaw drops open. "What the fuck?" I ask in a hiss. "Why didn't you tell me?"

His gaze goes flat, and I shove his shoulder playfully and laugh, and you know what?

Being around Karkat and hanging out in my big house? That had actually started to feel nice.

Something is crystallizing. I think it might be something as simple as a realization that I'm rich enough and cool enough to do whatever the fuck I want and fuck anyone who has a problem with it. I walked away from a life I hated once, and that was when I had no money, no prospects, no education, and nobody but Rose. I had struck out to find something better. Why can't I do that again?

_Because you don't have Rose anymore,_ something whispers, dark and deep. _You wrecked what the two of you had, and now Karkat is only here because she's buying his services._

There's some sort of commotion at the entrance.

Karkat is standing on his tiptoes and craning, because photographers and party goers are all mobbing the doors like fucking Jesus is strolling through. Reporters are shouting questions, people are fucking _swarming_. I crane my neck, trying to see, but even with my height --

No, wait. I do see _something_.

Tall, spiralling horns, all the colours of autumn.

My mind skips like a record, skips again, skips again. I go to think a thought and it's like trying to move a sleeping foot. My blood runs ice cold. Something isn't right, something won't parse, something is _wrong with me_. I'm stuck in a feedback loop. My mind keeps skipping. My heart is pounding and my palms are sweaty. I need to -- skip, skip, skip --

The crowd parts like Moses at the Red Sea and I see her.

Skip

Skip

skip

skip

"I think y'all ready to see me without glamours," she says, raspberry fuschia lips pulling back over a mouth that’s all glittering, razor sharp fangs. Flashbulbs strobe and I feel Karkat's hand on my wrist and grey skin yellow sclera black hair orange horns and

skip

skip

skip


	16. On Girls and Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

skip

skip

skip

_snap._

Reality crashes around me like history's most radical wave. I gasp and my eyes fly open wide and it's like a plugged pipe somewhere up in Dave central gets unstopped and I can think again. It feels like coming up from underwater, lungs burning, and suddenly being able to breathe.

She's standing there. Just standing there, eyes sweeping around the room, hands on her hips. She's wearing a long, shimmering pink evening gown. There are pink sapphires and gold glittering from her fingers, her ears, her wrists, her nose, studded all through her wild mass of coarse black hair. Delicate chains of gold and pink sapphire drape her waist, curl up and around her spiralling horns, dangle from her wrists, hang around her neck. Even her cat's eye glasses glitter.

She's as tall as I am, with a Scarlett Johansson figure, curved and then slender in all the right places. Hollywood body gold, hot as hell and oozing star power just in how she looks and holds herself, except that she is so clearly _not human_.

It's the Uncanny Valley. It's Tom Hanks in Polar Express. It's those CGI stormtroopers from the updated Star Wars movies. Everything we've evolved to recognize our own species is going _look, that creature is like me_. So you look. And find yourself staring into the fucking abyss. Alarm bells start going off, fight or flight kicks in, and your hindbrain starts shrieking _not like me at all_. Except that it's still like you, kind of. Just close enough to itch under your skin where you can't reach.

The Empress drops one hand from one hip, reaches up to fluff her wild mass of glittering, jewel studded hair, fucking preens for the flashing cameras. The questions from the press -- and, fuck, from a lot of the gathered Hollywood Elite who are, ironically, totally starstruck -- are almost deafening.

"Ms. Crocker! Ms. Crocker, how have you been obscuring your alien nature?"

"Ms. Crocker! You're beautiful!"

"Ms. Crocker, when will you allow more access to your ship?"

"Ms. Crocker! Who invited you here tonight, and why didn't anyone know you were coming?"

Karkat moves closer to me. I realize that he's shivering. I glance down at him. "Dude," I say. Or try to. My brain is still gasping for breath, this has all taken less than ten seconds, and my voice sounds like a donkey braying.

One of my best foster homes was a ranch out south of Austin. When the tornadoes would roll through, thunder crashing, lightning splitting the sky, and the wind fucking _howling_ so hard you couldn't hear your own thoughts, the horses would roll their eyes in a way that fucking _embodied_ fear. You've never seen a living thing afraid until you've seen a horse in a storm.

Karkat looks up at me like a horse in a storm.

My brain's gone from not being able to think at all to thinking too many thoughts at once. _(i've seen her)-(i know what she is)-(I've never seen her before in my life)-(hair like steel wool; skin like suede)-(What the fuck)_ I want to clap my hands over my ears to get away from the inside of my own fucking head, because it's a hurricane up there. I've never felt like this, fucking never. It's what I imagine having a goddamn stroke feels like, like your brain is just strobing out. I'm shaking, too, I realize. Me and Karkat, standing in the middle of the floor, horses rolling our eyes and screaming as the tornado bears down on us.

"Betty! Are you finally ready to tell us about your race and your home planet? Where did you come from? What did you leave behind?"

"Ms. Crocker, why did you hide behind a human appearance? What were you concealing?"

That's the question that gets her attention, the one that wrests her away from preening for the cameras. Her ears aren't ears, I realize suddenly, as she opens her mouth to reveal a bristle of anglerfish teeth. They're fins. And on her long neck, are those gills?

That's not right. She should have a normal respiratory system. Ears delicately pointed at the tips. A smooth neck that I run my thumbs over while I cup soft cheeks and we kiss and I snap back into myself, something is _wrong_ , something is out of step, there's a fucking party in my brain and everyone has an invitation but me.

"I was concealing all _this_ ," the Empress says, fuschia lips twisting into a smirky sort of grin, one hand sweeping down to encompass her full form. "Buoys, don't you even _try_ and tell me you would have been all smiles if I came down out of my battleship looking like this."

"She can't see me," Karkat whispers, voice shaking. "If she sees me, I'll be culled."

Half of my brain hurricane goes _culled?_ A bunch of the rest goes _shit._ And what's left goes _oh, Karkat, she can't see the colour of your blood_. None of it makes sense. I feel like I'm going to throw up.

"Haven't I said from moment one?" The Empress mimes a kiss. Her eyes sweep the room. "All I want is to do business here in peace. Why get all y'all worked up with the full monty right from the start?"

Her gaze lands on me.

We lock eyes. Her irises are the same fuschia-pink she's wearing from head to toe. This crazy intrusive thought crashes through my crazed monkeybrain like the fucking Kool-Aid man: _Fuck, why do they always feel the need to wear their colour like a fucking flashing neon sign? We fucking get it, you're pink._ The thought has no context and absolutely no logic behind it. It's like I'm experiencing a stranger's observation. All of this gives me some shelter from the fact that she's staring right into my fucking soul.

I don't think I recognize her. Not her, specifically. But... but I think, somehow, _she_ recognizes _me_.

She smirks and my blood runs cold.

Without thinking, just moving automatically, I step in front of Karkat, as if to shield him from her, and her eyes narrow. My heart is rolling thunder in my chest.

And then she shrugs. She dismisses me all at once, with a little flick of her wrist like she's brushing off a fly. I get the feeling like she's saving me for later, when she's got the leisure, but that act of sweeping me away somehow calms the tempest going on in my head. All the wild spinning streams of consciousness that don't make sense, that don't come from _me_ , they all go blessedly silent, and it's like the eye of the storm, being left alone with my own thoughts.

I never thought I could find my own mind, as fucking wild and awful as it is, so damn peaceful.

"Look, I'm here to party," the Empress says. "Can't you see I've got my nice shoes on and am looking damn fine? Are we done with Q&A for now? Who's man enough to whisk me off to the dance floor?"

And all of the world's best and brightest stars jump into action, swirling around her and leading her where she wills. Some of us hang back. Karkat and I aren't the only ones, which is a relief. There's a buzz of whispered conversation around all of those who don't flock around the Empress. Does she remark on who isn't pulled in by her? Is she right now making a list of people to take down, running up an inventory of influential types who aren't impressed?

"I'm gonna puke," Karkat says, his voice small and tremulous. He stumbles off. I don't think he actually knows where to find a toilet, and it's gonna look real bad if he horfs in one of the fig trees, so I take a couple long strides after him, grab his arm, and tug him in the right direction. I'm expecting some barbed comment, or at least for him to yank away from me. If anything, though, he leans _in._

That makes me feel... a lot of feelings.

Karkat is messily and vocally sick in a toilet stall, and the guy who stands by the sink to dry your hands and offer you mints looks uncomfortable. I don't have to go, but I take a stall for myself and drop onto the toilet, pants still up. I get my phone out.

TG: shes here

I stare at my phone, tapping my foot, waiting for the familiar lavender text to show up on my screen, but Rose doesn't text back. I have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Did the Empress somehow... hurt Rose? Did she know that Rose had insight into her doings? Was it on her to-do list, before shedding her human skin and making her grand appearance as a true alien overlord, to off the one person who might predict her plans?

Because suddenly, those plans seem really real, and really immediate. I'd _believed_ Rose from the start. Obviously, considering how I reacted. The world is doomed because of Betty Crocker's big red battleship. But the knowledge of Earth's death had felt like a looming melancholy, a sad, painful, throbbing ache of knowledge. Not something real, terrifying, _(familiar)_ , and probably doing the Single Ladies dance in the next fucking room, surrounded by people I know.

TG: shes dropped the whole nice old lady act  
TG: like  
TG: dropped it like its hot  
TG: dropped it like it's on fucking fire  
TG: flames leaping off this shit  
TG: burning her old lady eyebrows off  
TG: revealing the sexy gross alien queen underneath  
TG: shes got fucking gills rose  
TG: you never said anything about gills

Or about all the rest. About how it would make the back of my brain itch with something I know I know but can't remember, like a corrupted file.

TG: tho i guess shes keeping up with some of the betty crocker thing  
TG: still got them cat's eyes glasses  
TG: damn im glad i didn't wear those tonight after all  
TG: how embarrassing  
TG: all the gossip rags would be talking about is how we jacked each others swagger

I hear Karkat gasping for air in the stall next to me. I swallow hard. Clear my thoughts. "Uh," I say. "You okay, bro?"

"I don't know," Karkat says. His voice comes out in this strangled sort of whine. It makes my heart contract. Poor dude.

TG: karkats pretty shook up  
TG: i guess  
TG: she  
TG: he  
TG: hm  
TG: stand by

Gears are ticking away in my head. Something is off, here. Karkat had babbled some shit about being afraid of her? Afraid of getting attacked? _Karkat_ is the one puking away, when he's been rolling his eyes at my Betty Crocker related angst for a month?

"What's up?" I say.

"I don't know," he says again.

"You, uh, reacted pretty fucking strongly out there. Hit a nerve, or something?"

"I don't know," he repeats, and I think that maybe I hear the ragged edge of tears in his voice.

Fuck.

TG: look something weird is going on fucking text me  
TG: where the hell are you??

I wait another minute. I time it on my phone's clock. No response. I grind my teeth, turn the screen off, and stand up.

"Yo," I say, "let's blow this shit, okay?"

There's a moment of silence, and then Karkat says, weakly: "This is supposed to be your big comeback."

"Fuck that noise," I scoff. "Fuck it right in the decibels. Whatever, dude. Not only is absolutely nobody going to be talking about Dave Strider's big underwhelming reappearance after _that_ shit, I actually think I don't fucking care? One hundred percent do not fucking care." I shake my head. "I can't believe I thought I did."

"The limo isn't going to be back until three in the fucking morning," Karkat says, and it fills me with relief that he sounds a little bit more like himself.

"Meh," I say. "I'll ring up a taxi."

When Karkat emerges from the stall, he's still looking a little green. His hair is all mussed, there's a suspicious yellow stain on his plain white tee, and he smells like chinese food that's been dipped in stomach acid. It is definitely not his sexiest look. He can't quite meet my eyes, but he shoves his hands in his pockets and mutters something and that seems a little more like the Karkat I know.

I lead him to the back exit. Heavy bass is coming from the ballroom, and I can hear my peers and their new alien overlord all singing _Party rock is in the hoooouse toniiight_. One of those fun little details Independence Day missed: our species' end will be underscored by the dulcet sounds of LMFAO. Our taxi is already waiting at the curb and we slide in. Karkat squirms all the way over to the far end of his seat, curled up to the door. He's still trembling a little.

The driver is looking at me, double-taking, and looking again in the mirror. "Yep," I say. "I'm super famous. Eyes front, bro, we're headed to the Palazzo di Amore up on Lania."

Karkat snorts. "Your fucking house is called the Love Palace? Jesus fucking Christ."

Hearing the scorn in his voice makes me feel a thousand times better. It's like taking a deep breath. "I didn't name it that, dumbass, the designer did."

He grumbles. I smile. My phone buzzes.

TT: Oh my god, Dave. I'm so sorry.  
TG: fuck there you are  
TT: I didn't have any premonitions about tonight at all, I swear it.  
TT: I would never have sent you in at all, and certainly not alone.  
TT: I'm Googling now. There are already a hundred photos on the internet. She's certainly... something, isn't she? She's surprisingly beautiful. The horns are especially striking, don't you think?  
TG: sure  
TG: striking sure is a fucking word!  
TG: can you calm your ladyboner here because damn this is kinda serious???  
TT: That's hardly my intent!  
TT: Do you see how well put together she is? Every hair in place, her dress and jewels well chosen. She's framing herself as exotic, stunning, arresting. She wants all eyes on her, and she knows how humans judge one another.  
TT: By physical attraction.  
TT: Here's a video.  
TT: Good lord.  
TT: I know she's been here for a century now, but it's still odd to watch something so alien know how to act like a human. Watch how she moves as she dances.  
TG: im not there anymore  
TG: karkat and i got the fuck out  
TG: split like bananas  
TG: split like an asscrack  
TT: Lovely.  
TG: no way we were hanging around there rose it was fucking  
TG: like  
TG: are you not getting this??  
TT: Getting what?  
TG: this fucking sense of  
TG: fuck i dont know!  
TG: like your skull is splitting down the middle and your brains are doing the fucking electric slide up in there and you dont even know what your own fucking mind is thinking???  
TT: ... no.  
TT: Did that happen to you?  
TG: ugh  
TT: I feel a strange sense of.. of deja vu, I suppose. I assumed it was a side effect of my vision. I never saw her directly, just in silhouette, overlooking the horrors she'd wrought with smug satisfaction.  
TT: But it's certainly nothing even close to what you're describing, unless you're being hyperbolic?  
TG: karkat was literally puking his fucking guts out dude  
TG: as far from hyperbole as possible i swear to fucking god  
TT: Wait.  
TT: Karkat was?  
TG: yeah  
TG: how about that  
TT: How odd.  
TG: this is what i was trying to tell you while you were off doing what the fuck ever instead of answering my fucking texts!  
TG: i wigged out for sure  
TG: its better now that im not in the same room as her still a lil shaken but whatever ill be cool  
TG: but karkat fucking FLIPPED HIS SHIT BRO  
TG: straight up  
TG: sent his shit spinning up in the air like a show off making pancakes  
TG: turd patty barbeque style  
TT: Remind me not to attend that particular event.  
TG: this is serious  
TT: I know it is.  
TT: I'm thinking.  
TT: It's possible that...  
TT: Hm.

I wait for her to continue. She doesn't. I sneak a glance over at Karkat, who's staring out the window, barely moving.

"Tell you what," I say. "I'm sure as shit never eating Bisquick again."

"What the fuck are you going on about now?"

"Betty Crocker, dude."

"Oh."

I sigh. I feel the urge to -- to I don't know, _do something_ , but I don't know what. I keep getting this compulsion to touch him, to slide over and pull him close, but that's insanely fucking inappropriate. But I'm terrible with words, I don't know how to express that I'm legit worried about him here, and it's making my fingers twitch with thwarted frustration.

"Well," I say, trying to sound casual. "At least speculation about me -- and you -- is gonna be the _least_ interesting gossip coming out of that party."

He turns about to look at me. His eyes are... haunted. "I don't fucking know what just happened," he says, voice hoarse. "I can't explain it and it's fucking terrifying, okay? I didn't think -- fuck, I _still don't think_ that Betty fucking Crocker has any dark designs on the human race, that's just fucking stupid, right? She's been here forever! It doesn't make _sense_ to be afraid of something that's always been there, but you only know about it now. That's just..." He growls. Takes a deep breath, and then another. "But when I fucking saw her, I just... I... I don't know. I don't fucking know. Some part of me just..."

"Remembered something?" I suggested, because I’m thinking that he fucking _must_ be going through the same thing I am, somehow.

But he shakes his head. His eyes are like bruises in his dark face. " _Knew_ , like a fucking bug under a boot, that I was about to die."

"Do --" I go to ask a question, but my phone buzzes again. "Hold on," I say, holding up a finger. "It's Rose. I'll just be a sec." I'm terrified that he's going to be hurt that I'm pulling away, but he actually deflates and looks... relieved.

TT: I've been keeping something from you.  
TT: I think it might be best if I reveal it now.  
TG: well thats not spooky as fuck  
TG: hold on i gotta clench my butthole for this revelation  
TT: Did you not think it was somewhat suspicious that I entrusted your care, after such a major incident, to a foreign stranger?  
TG: uh  
TG: well he did save my life  
TT: Yes, he did. Which is odd enough on its own, you know. The locals in places like Ibiza tend to keep their distance from people like you, out seeking oblivion.  
TT: But in truth, I had a premonition.  
TT: Not a vision. I've still only had the one, when we saw the battleship for the first time and I collapsed.  
TT: Honestly, I would be fine never having another. It was a very unpleasant experience.  
TT: But just... a feeling. That the two of you shouldn't be separated.  
TT: It was pleasant and convenient happenstance that I could kill two birds with one stone: to keep the two of you together, and have you monitored by someone I could reliably be sure would be loyal to me.  
TT: I feel like you're angry at me.  
TG: well damn  
TG: im not fucking thrilled?  
TG: since when did you start leaving me out of your little insights????  
TT: Just this one time.  
TT: And I can't even quite explain why I did it.  
TT: Just that... it seemed right.  
TG: i sure wish i could excuse all my dumbass shit with that  
TG: why did you eat all the pizza dave  
TG: oh i dont know it just SEEMED RIGHT  
TT: You're angry then.  
TG: im confused  
TG: and had a really fucking insane night  
TG: and trying to figure out what this all means  
TG: i swear to god rose it was like id seen her before only not her and also no id never seen her before ever but i swear id seen her before but not her  
TG: ive never felt anything like that and im kind of shaken up here?  
TG: and also i forgot to mention this because everything is FUCKING INSANE HAHA but she looked me right in the eye and i swear to god dude i swear to fucking christ she knew something was up with me  
TG: and karkat who has been beside me every day for a month is kind of freaking out you know on top of all the rest  
TG: so sorry if i dont immediately fucking know how to react to you apparently acting in my interests without my knowledge or like  
TG: i dont even fucking know  
TT: Did she approach you? Acknowledge you? Draw attention to you in any way?  
TG: no  
TT: I'm really not trying to be flippant.  
TT: I'm the furthest thing from it.  
TT: But the advantage of seizure-inducing visions as opposed to simple premonitions is that they're considerably more specific and detailed.  
TT: And all of the things I described to you? The catastrophes she'll cause? The slow destruction of both humanity and our home? You and I playing a role in mitigating the Empress's influences and scoring victories against her even in death? They happen years from now, Dave.  
TT: Not tonight.  
TT: Not for a long time.  
TT: And so I'm going to ask that you give me time to investigate as best I can what may or may not have happened this evening, while you concentrate on getting better.  
TT: One thing is even more certain than before: I can't bear to stand against her without you by my side.

My heart swells.

TG: yeah  
TG: i mean  
TG: that all makes sense i guess  
TT: Can I leave you, now? Will you be all right?  
TG: probably  
TT: Text me if anything changes. I won't leave my phone again tonight, I swear it.  
TT: Tell Karkat to check his phone, please.  
TT: Merry Christmas.

A moment later, Karkat's phone dings. He startles.

"You should check that," I say, obeying Rose's orders, because that's something I'm generally pretty good at doing. And Karkat obeys mine, in turn, though not without a little glare. He picks up the phone, looks at it, and then... smiles.

"What?" My curiosity is burning.

"What did the pirate say on his 80th birthday?" Karkat asks.

I blink. "Are you having a stroke?"

"Aye matey," Karkat says, and laughs, shaking his head. "Rose is so fucking weird."

Oh.

She'd sent him a stupid joke to cheer him up. And for the first time, I realize that Rose actually cares about Karkat. Whether it's from her contact with him, or just her premonitions referring some affection, it makes me think that, like... we're all connected. For the first time in my life, I think that maybe I feel tethered to something? To the ground, maybe. Or to life in general. It's not just me and Rose holding hands and facing down the world. A third person turns a line into a web, and a web might be a lot harder to break.

"Damn, Rose." I say. "That's fucking awful."

"Yeah," Karkat agrees.

\- END OF PART 1 -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone for joining me so far!! I'm terrible at responding to comments, but every single one absolutely makes my day and I'm so glad so many people are finding this fic resonates with them -- or are just plain here hoping for these idiots to be happy. We've still got quite a ways to go, so I hope you all stick around :)
> 
> Dave's home is the absolutely amazing [Palazzo di Amore](http://www.palazzodiamoreestate.com/) in Beverly Hills. I am striving hard to stay historically accurate both to the actual historical Dave and Rose flashbacks, and to the 2011 time period, but I made an exception for the Palazzo, which was renovated to its current state in 2013. Let's just pretend it's one of those things slightly different thanks to Crockercorp influence :)
> 
> If you want to follow me on tumblr, my URL is http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com/! Lots of Homestuck and lots of shitposts.


	17. Interlude 5: August, 1993 // When I'm With You, I Feel Like Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

The old fan rattled. Flies buzzed against the screen window. It was the kind of hot night that makes the relief of cool weather seem like a distant dream, and Dave laid in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, and straining his ears.

There was a worrying sort of grumble mixed in with the hum of the refrigerator, and the last time he'd gotten up to pour himself some cold water, it had been less cold and more lukewarm. So that was fun. There was also the drip-drip-drip of the faucet in the tiny bathroom that nobody seemed to be able to fix. He'd gotten raked over the coals for using too much water two months running. As if it was his fault.

But Dave tuned it out as best he could. He was focused slightly beyond, to the footfalls coming from the unit next to his. The thin walls made it pretty easy to telegraph his neighbour's movements. There she was, running the water in the bathroom. And there she was back in the bedroom, moving quickly, like she was worried she was late for something. Back in the bathroom again. Her phone rang and her footsteps sprinted across the apartment to grab the phone. He couldn't make out exactly what she said, but there was laughter and camaraderie in her voice. Her night was just starting while his was mostly over.

He lit a cigarette, taking a long drag, and then releasing into the darkness above him. The smoke caught the light from the city streaming in through the window. A car drove by, blasting its horn. His neighbour stopped talking on the phone. Dave admired the way that the smoke made his fingers relax, the way his blood stopped trying to strangle his heart, guts, and brain. He smoked and picked out the sounds of her in her apartment, getting ready, and then, finally, heading out the front door.

He put out his butt and headed over.

She never locked her apartment. She was definitely going to start when she looked at her phone bill, but for this one billing cycle, he had free access to her shit. The trick, when going into someone else's apartment, was to pretend like you were invited there, so Dave smiled to a passing resident who smiled back on his way in. Easy peasy.

Rose picked up on the fourth ring, right when Dave felt a sinking in his gut and started to think that maybe she wasn't there. "Hello?"

The sound of her voice did basically what the cigarettes did, but better. He sighed, pure relief coursing through him, and sank into his neighbour's big, comfy armchair. "Yo," he said. He tried to sound cool and chill. No dice.

"Dare I hope that you're calling from a payphone, and not once again committing an act of breaking and entering?" Her voice was threaded equally with amusement and disapproval. He cracked a smile.

"Uh, sure," he said. "Definitely all on the up-and-up, here, so no worries."

"Oh, wonderful. I'm glad you're not leaping into adult life with two feet squarely aimed for delinquency."

"Yeah, no. One hundred percent delinquency-free, here, and I'm hella not gonna be swiping a coke from her fridge on my way out."

Rose sighed. "Really, though," she said, and the two words spoke volumes.

"Whatever," he replied, hoping that it was just as multi-layered with fuckloads of meaning.

"Have you looked for anything else?" she said.

"Nope," he replied.

"I really have to express how ill-considered that is," she said.

"Eh," he replied.

She sighed again, deeper. "Dave," she said, and he bit his lip and ran a hand through his hair. He knew what was coming, here. Another lecture, one that he got pretty much every time he called her. He hated them. And loved them. Because didn't he just keep fucking calling? But instead of a drawn out reminder that kids in his situation only got a solid six months to get their feet under them before getting kicked to the curb out of halfway houses like this one, she made a small noise in the back of her throat. "Dave, what are you going to do?"

He'd been settling in to let her words wash over him, to enjoy the sense that someone actually gave a shit what happened to him once the foster system had paid its dues to his sad life, who felt that he continued to exist beyond his eighteenth birthday. The request for active participation caught him off guard, and he reacted the way he did when his case worker asked the same things. "I dunno." He shrugged, as if she could see him. "Get a job."

After a moment's pause: "Well. How embarrassing that I doubted you had a well thought out plan for the future. I've been put in my place! I can see that my concerns are unnecessary."

He smiled at that, winding the phone cord around his fingers. "Yeah, see? I got this shit locked down. Locked down like Fort fucking Knox up in here. Think again, clever band of attractive thieves about to throw a rad heist. You ain't leaving with shit."

She laughed and he grinned. He loved to hear her laugh. His heart surged and his stomach curled into knots. He wanted to hear her laugh every day. He wanted to be there, by her side. He wanted to help her pack her things carefully, to see her on her way to the future she'd made for herself. He wanted to be with her.

Not that it was mutual.

All the sweet, aching longing inside of him turned sour and he choked on it when he tried to swallow it down. There had been a time when he and Rose had been the same. Two kids lost in the system, who felt they weren't quite _right_ , who had no family and no history except the most mysterious of circumstances, who took names that they wanted for themselves and found each other across the divide of geography.

They weren't the same anymore. Not even close. While Dave languished in a ramshackle halfway house for foster kids who'd aged out of the system, who hadn't made enough connections to stay somewhere better, Rose still had her big room covered in velvet prints and a foster family who felt obligated to get her on her feet. While Dave's lack of funds and shit-tier grades had made further education fucking impossible, Rose had a full scholarship to Harvard to study lit. And while Dave had fucking _nobody_ , nobody except her, Rose had a string of attractive girlfriends who adored her, a bevy of teachers and counsellors who cared about her future, and a simulacrum of a real family who hadn't pushed her out the door the second she turned eighteen.

All Dave had was Rose, but Rose had so much more than Dave.

And it all seemed really fucking pathetic all of a sudden. Sitting in someone else's apartment and looking for comfort from someone who definitely had better things to do. Tagging along after her like a dog at her heels while her life had moved past needing him. A wave of despair crashed over him and he did something he hadn't done since the day Foster Camp had closed.

He burst into tears.

" _Dave_?" He heard her voice, shrill with concern, just before he slammed the phone down on the receiver. He tried to get to his feet, but his shoulders were shaking and he was fucking _sobbing_. Shit. Fuck. His stomach cramped and he gasped for air. Fuck. Fuck.

The phone rang.

Jesus Christ.

He picked it up. He tried to say something. Hello would be a good start. Good luck. It was probably for his neighbour, it was _definitely_ for his neighbour, and he bawled into the receiver.

"Dave, what the _fuck_?" Rose's voice blasted into his ear, and he seized it like a lifeline. He coiled himself around it and clamped down on his own bullshit so hard he actually managed to gasp for air.

"Sorry," he said. Or wailed, more like.

"What the hell is _wrong_? What _happened_?"

"I'm sorry," he said again.

" _Stop being sorry!_ " she snapped. She took a deep breath. He tried to do the same. "Tell me what's going on, please. _Please_. I'm terrified. Is that what you want to hear from me? I'm petrified right now. I'm out of my mind."

"I never gave you this number."

"I have Caller ID."

Of course she did. Of course her family could afford to give her her own line with all the bells and whistles. Fixating on that, on that little detail, it was easy to let some kernel of the truth slip out.

"See? You don't fucking need me anymore."

Silence.

Then.

"Oh, what the fuck. Dave. Jesus, Dave. What the hell is this? Where is this coming from? Jesus!"

There was something in her voice, this deep well of incredulity at the very _thought_ that she didn't need him. And it made him feel a little bit better.

"I'm fucked up." It was a response to both questions she'd asked, and it _didn't_ sound like he was wailing, so that was an improvement.

"You certainly are," she agreed. She sounded so annoyed that he actually choked out a laugh. Shit. "What's the matter with you?"

"So many things."

"I'd rather an actual answer, Dave."

He dashed tears from his cheeks, hiccuped, and took a deep breath. This was so fucking pathetic. "You've got your shit together," he muttered.

"So?"

"So, I fucking don't?"

She sighed. "Dave..."

"You've got people and things and plans. Fuck, I haven't got any of those."

"Dave, what the fuck?"

"You needed me when we were snot-nosed kids, but now?"

"Now I need you more than _ever_!" Rose's voice had an edge of desperation in it that shocked him into silence. She sighed, the sound crackling through the lines. He could imagine her running a hand through her hair and smoothing her clothes as she picked out her next words carefully. As she did. "Dave," she said, and then she paused. "Dave," she repeated, and this time it sounded as if she were tasting the name. "I've never once thought it strange that I call you that. It's not your real name, and yet I know in my heart that it _is_."

"Yeah," he murmured.

"I could talk about my premonitions," she said. "I could say that I _know_ you need to be part of my life. I could talk about how it is beyond impossible that you and I could have been found in the aftermath of two _separate_ devastating meteor crashes, only a day apart, without anyone to claim us, and have it all be a coincidence. I could remind you that we connected instantly and intensely despite having really nothing in common. But forget all of the cosmic strangeness that dogs the two of us."

"You're kind of making that hard, going on about it like you are," he said. He wiped his eyes again, on the back of his sleeve.

"Hush. Dave. I am a young woman on the brink of adulthood. I'm going off to school in a new state, surrounded by people who have grown up with privileges I can't even imagine. My foster family have kept me out of guilt, and nothing else, and I'm still terrified of leaving them, and I don't want to even talk about them and what it's been like here, except to say that you mean everything to me and no one else has ever cared about me like you have, _known_ me like you have. Ever. No one has even tried. Dave, I love you so much."

"Oh."

"When I'm with you, and _only_ when I'm with you, I feel like I'm me."

"Okay."

"And the reason I'm _riding_ you isn't because I -- what was it you said? Because I don't _need_ you anymore? That's idiocy. You're an idiot."

"Yeah, okay."

"I'm about to go out and start this new chapter and what I'm afraid of is that you'll just end up... the worst possible version of yourself. Unemployed and in a ditch and _not there for me_ , because I selfishly don't think I can do life without you in it. That's what this is about."

He swallowed hard. He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay," he repeated. "Okay."

"Dave," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Get a job. Please, get a real job, and a real apartment, and make a life so that I can be a part of it."

"Okay," he said again.

"Sometimes," she said, and he thought he could hear the edge of tears in her voice, too. "Sometimes, I think you're the only person in the entire world who's _real_. I can't live with ghosts without you there."

He closed his eyes tight. Rose had a way with words. She was going to fucking _destroy_ Harvard's English program. She was going to be something, that was sure as shit. And so... so he was going to have to be something, too. So that he could be there. Because he'd never heard his life described so well as that.

"Okay."

"Okay," she agreed, and she took a deep breath. It definitely shook a bit. And that calmed his own fear, settled the seething knots in his stomach. "Now get out of that hellhole, get your own phone line, and then call me again so I can ride you into the fucking _dirt_ to get your shit together."


	18. I'm Just a Singer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

I wake up thinking about the end of the world.

Not with the sense of hopeless, crushing, painful dread that I've been fighting off since Rebranding Day. Not suffocating on the knowledge that nothing matters because everything is doomed. Not thinking about the Empress at the party last night, not imagining the Earth flooded and humanity drowned, not wondering how many years we have left.

Instead, I'm thinking about bacon and eggs.

The thing is, I never eat breakfast. I sleep late and never find the time. I fucking love bacon and eggs. The one foster mom I ever really cared about, the one who put glow in the dark stickers in my ceiling, she made breakfast every day for us kids and always made sure I ate my fill. Just the smell of that shit cooking makes me feel, you know... happy, nostalgic, loved. I'd eat bacon and eggs and good southern cornbread for every fucking meal, I think, except that I just never fucking find the time or place to do it.

So when I slowly become aware of my body, drifting out of dreams filled with flying and a big red cape, the loose semi-conscious flow of my thoughts suddenly arrives at the realization that the world is fucking _ending_ and maybe that's a reason to throw LA soy sensibilities to one side and just fucking eat some fucking bacon and eggs.

I blink hard, clearing bleary eyes, and sit up in bed. The door is open and the hallway is full of mid-morning light that floods my windowless room. Karkat's gone. His chenille nest is made up flawlessly, all the corners tucked and wrinkles smoothed. What a fucking weirdo. Who fucking makes their bed without someone hovering over them enforcing compliance? A smile tugs at my mouth.

I think that Karkat needs to eat a big, hearty American breakfast. Bacon, eggs, cornbread, fucking whatever else. Sausages. Fuck yeah.

After I throw on a t-shirt and jeans, I find him in the theatre room, curled up onto one of the big plush couches with a bowl of popcorn in his lap and yet another chenille blanket wrapped around himself. Damn, dude fucking loves his comfy blankets. "Comfy" is a good word in general. He's all cocooned up, eyes locked on the screen. It's playing My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and he's barely blinking. I don't think he notices I'm there. I'm not sure he remembers anything exists, in fact, he's so locked on the weird aunt explaining how she'd eaten her twin in utero to the horrified fiance. Goddamn this is a weird movie.

"Yo," I say.

He jumps like I jumped out of a closet in a dark room, and red spreads under his dark cheeks as he glares at me. "What the fuck?" he demands, voice a little high. Cute. "Has nobody ever told you to not sneak up on people?"

"Sorry, bro, next time I'll stomp my feet real hard and sing when I come down the hall so I don't scare you."

"Fuck you, I wasn't scared," Karkat shoots back, and brings his blanket up around his head so that it hides his face. Fuck, dude, he's fucking cute sometimes. He gets so worked up and then so embarrassed.

I watch the screen and give him a sec to get his shit together. At first, I thought it was funny to push his buttons, but... eh. "Wanna go for a ride?" I ask.

His hood of blanket falls down around his shoulders and he turns to look at me with suspicious eyes and pulled down eyebrows. His hair is tousled. "What for?" he asks, guarded.

"Breakfast," I say. 

"Well, holy fucking shit," Karkat says, throwing off his blanket and setting aside his popcorn. "I've been here over a month and you're finally going to fucking feed me!"

He leaves the movie playing and follows me down to the garage. "You're dressed like a normal person," he says.

"Yeah," I say. I shrug. "I'm kind of over the whole Dave Strider thing at the moment."

"That's funny, _I'm_ over the Dave Strider thing every fucking moment of every day."

I laugh. "Damn. I think I just got _slayed_. Pretty good, dude. Gotta give it up."

Karkat mumbles something, clearly not sure how to react. I walk down the long lines of cars until I find something a little less ostentatious than most of my rides, a blood-red Lexus sedan. Yeah, that'll do. "Hop in," I say. Karkat gets into the passenger seat and I start the car up.

The garage door opens up when I touch the button, revealing a gorgeous, crisp SoCal day. The sky is blue as sapphires without a cloud in sight and a steady wind bends the palms as I drive out. Despite what I've seen on TV and Rose's protests, Christmas has never meant ice and snow to me. First in Texas and now here in Cali, it's just a cool, pleasant day.

And now I'm thinking about Christmas.

I never had a lot of great Christmases. Most of them were shitshows. But I like the _idea_ of Christmas a lot -- always have. In 1994 -- the year Karkat was born, I recall, with a weird deja vu style double take at how fucking odd that is -- I had that first beater car I'd scraped together the cash to buy, and I'd driven all the way up to Mass to visit Rose at Harvard. She'd been a sophomore and had been living with four other girls, one of whom she was dating at the time, in a rented house. I'd spent the whole month of December there, and they'd gotten a tree, strung the whole place with lights, and exchanged gifts. Rose had given me my first video camera, a shitty second hand thing that was just absolutely fucking huge. I still have the thing kicking around in a box somewhere, even though it's broken and trash, because when I so much as think about the weight of it on my shoulder and how I'd felt opening that gift, it kind of chokes me up.

The decorations, the food, the gifts. I'm pouring over it all in my head and it occurs to me that Christmas is just like bacon and eggs. The world is going to end, and then there won't be any Christmas ever again, and fucking hell, why have I never decorated my place? Why have I always laughed the season off, indulged in drink, drugs, and sex, and only let myself enjoy it for the two days I'd spent in New England with Rose? The world is _ending_ , the anglerfish-toothed architect of its fate is probably doing an interview on E! right now, and I've never bought a fucking tree.

What the fuck, right?

"Do y'all celebrate Christmas where you're from?" I ask. Real casual-like.

I see him shoot a glance at me and then, just as quickly, look away and gaze out the window. "No," he says. "Not in Morocco, at least. In Spain, yeah, they go fucking wild-eyed, light-up-every-fucking-thing _crazy_. But it was always..." he shrugs. "It was never for me."

Never for ex-pat African hookers soliciting rich tourists. Okay, sure. That makes sense. But it _does_ bring all those burning questions back to the forefront of my mind. How did he get to Ibiza in the first place? Why did he start hooking? How the fuck is his English so damn good? 

"Okay," I say. Be cool, Dave. Be fucking cool. "Guess you're not really into it, then. That makes sense." I try not to sound disappointed, but no luck. I actually sound pretty fucking crushed.

"I didn't say that!" Karkat snaps. He slouches down in his chair and shoots me another look from beneath his thick eyelashes. "I -- I don't know, it always seemed pretty neat in the movies?"

"Neat?" I ask, laughing at his choice of words.

"Shut your fucking carnivorous gob!"

"Okay."

"It just -- I don't know, it seemed... I don't know!" He runs a hand through his hair. Curls go everywhere. Stop being so fucking cute, Karkat, I'm trying to drive, here. "Something about it just... seemed... familiar, I guess? I -- I don't know, it's just one of those weird things about my weird life, I just liked the thought of it. It made me feel... warm? Imagining... I don't know. Why am I even talking about this? Who fucking cares, ugh! This is idiotic! I liked the sociological question of how most of the world celebrates a religious holiday for a religion few of them follow and how it became secularized and yet hasn't been able to penetrate Islamic countries like my own, there, there's a fucking answer, now shut the fuck up and leave me the hell alone."

I've never met anyone so afraid to just say what they mean. Well. That might not be true, because I think I can technically say that I've met myself. I fumble through the radio until I find a station playing Christmas music. Mariah Carey swears that all she wants for Christmas is me. I sing along, and Karkat gives me a long-suffering, desperately pleading sort of look.

I'm not really sure where I'm going, but I’m just reading signs and avoiding the really chic cafe sort of areas until I find a little diner that proclaims that it serves hearty breakfast all day. "Shit," I murmur to myself, amused at the three exclamation marks someone mounted up onto the yellow sign, " _all fucking day?_ Holy fuck!"

Karkat snorts. I look over and he's shaking his head, but smiling.

Nice.

We pull into a spot and a few minutes later, we're sitting at a table and looking over a plastic menu, which is how you _know_ it's a classy joint. They're offering something called the Midwestern Big Breakfast, which claims to be three pieces of toast, four eggs, sausages, ham, a pancake, potato wedges... we're talking like two thousand calories. I'm fucking _delighted_.

"Midwestern Big Breakfast," I tell the waitress when she whips out her little pad. I look at Karkat. "And you should get one, too."

"I'll never be able to eat all of that," Karkat says, making a face.

"He's seriously underselling his capacity, here," I tell the waitress, very seriously.

"I'm seriously underselling how much you can go fuck yourself!"

"Two Midwestern Big Breakfasts." I flash a grin.

The grin does it. The waitress's eyes widen. "Hold on," she says. "Aren't you --"

"Yep," I say.

She looks like she might faint. "Can I have your autograph?"

"Nope," I say.

"But you're --"

"A famous asshole who really wants to eat three pieces of toast and be left alone," I say.

I give her my nicest smile, because I'm really not trying to be a dick. I just don't want to do it. I don't want to be that guy, not right now. Right now, I just want to be a dude who's taking his... friend? to eat a shitload of bacon and eggs because the world is ending and we might as well all enjoy bacon and eggs while we've got time.

And after a second, she seems to accept that and walks off. I'm sure she's gonna snap a thousand pics on her phone and put them all over Facebook but you know what? Fuck it, whatever. Don't care. I can't control anybody else. I can only do my own thing.

It's a really, really liberating thought. It's like a fucking _epiphany._

"We should get Christmas shit," I say.

"Oh my god," Karkat says, throwing up his hands. "What the fuck is _wrong_ with you, today?"

"What? Fuck, nothing. Less than nothing. I'm fucking rad, dude."

"After what happened last night, you're just... suddenly 'rad'?"

I crack a smile. "Well, I was always pretty rad."

"You were always fucking crushingly depressed, listless, and annoying as fuck to be around because of your tendency to stare out windows and sigh."

"I think I might still be those things," I say. "But now on top of it, I feel pretty good."

"What the fuck?" he asks again. I think he's actually asking it, like a question. What the fuck, Dave Strider? How do you look the death of humanity in the eye while we both have fucking god tier panic attacks while Hollywood's elite fall over themselves to worship the harbinger of doom, and then wake up _better_ than you've been in years?

"I think," I say, "there's just a lot to be said about bacon and eggs. And those same things might extend to Christmas decorations? And maybe enjoying those things is..."

I stop, because I don't think Karkat knows that the world is fucked and I'm not sure he wants to find out over plastic menus. I don't know how to explain myself without that kernel of knowledge. But... even with that knowledge, I'm still not sure how to explain myself. I was fucked up last night. I'd had an actual like, mental _episode_ when I'd seen the alien Empress in her full alien glory. I'd been really, really wrecked, and Karkat had possibly been even worse. And now?

He seems more or less fine, and as for me -- I don't know what I am, now. Humming under my breath and really, really excited to dig the fuck into some bacon and eggs.

"If you don't want to --" I start, but Karkat holds up a hand.

"I didn't say that," he snaps. "I -- I mean, it doesn't sound --" He growls and looks down at his plastic menu. "I just mean that it sounds fine. It's all fucking fine."

I smile. "Fuck," I say. "That's almost as enthusiastic as when I convinced you to help with Can Town."

He looks up sharply. "What?" he asks.

"I --" I can't even remember what I just said, or why I said it. My vision doubles and I put my fingers against my temple and shake my head to clear it. "Fuck," I say. "I don't know. Something about... weird."

Karkat nods, but there's a light of unease burning behind his gaze. "Yeah," he says. "Weird."

And then our Midwestern Big Breakfasts arrive and I'm more than happy to chase that fucking bizarre moment away. I think I just crossed a wire in my head. Confused a memory of building lego towers with one of my foster sisters with Karkat? I don't know. I pick up my fork and focus on the real purpose of this visit: bacon and eggs.

Jesus Christ.

_So much bacon and eggs._

"Holy fuck," I say cheerfully. "Let's get fat."


	19. Who Already Blew His Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry about how late this chapter was! summer is not my season.

Fourty-five minutes later, _I have never felt fatter._

Karkat and I practically roll back to the Lexus, nursing our Midwestern Big Breakfasts, which have transformed like a scene from a horror flick into some Rosemary's Baby-esque abominations somewhere around our middles. He didn't finish his ham and I didn't get through my pancakes, but all things considered, I think we acquitted ourselves pretty admirably. Another couple of bites and my state of mind would have gone from _shit, that was a lot of food :)_ to _shit, that was a lot of food :(_ so I'm feeling pretty good about my choices. And Karkat lets out a pleased sigh, lips curled in happy satisfaction, settling back into the passenger seat like it's an armchair.

I turn the key in the ignition and the Lexus purrs to life. I'm aware of a guy on the sidewalk with his phone held up in the universal "taking a video" position. I can just see the headline this gets posted under. _Hotshot Director Dave Strider Gains Thirty Pounds In One Morning!_ What shocks me is how little I actually care.

"Good?" I ask Karkat.

"Fuck," he replies. "I'm not sure I'm ever eating again. Fuck."

"Awesome," I laugh.

Okay. Next stop. I imagine Rose sitting in the backseat scolding me while I pull up my phone and drive at the same time. "Siri," I say, all solicitous,"where can I find me some Christmas Trees?" Just to fuck with him, I swerve a little.

"Fuck!" Karkat gasps, and reaches out to grab the steering wheel. "Jesus Christ, are you mental? Watch the fucking road! _I_ could drive better than you!"

"The nearest Christmas Tree lot is Mr. Jingles Christmas Trees on Westwood Boulevard," Siri talks over him sweetly.

"I dunno," I say. "I've been driving since before you were born."

"Which makes it kind of especially pathetic that you're so fucking bad at it!" Karkat retorts, but breathes out hard and settles back into his seat as I stop fucking around and actually drive the car correctly.

"Aight," I say, as Siri routes me. "Mr. Jingles it is."

As horrifying as the breakfast had been, it feels good and warm in my belly. I've never been the sort of guy who gets bloated or feels greasy after eating shit food. Shit food is in my blood, man. I was raised on backyard barbecue, Hamburger Helper, and Rice-a-Roni. I seek out nachos and biscuits smothered in gravy when I'm drunk or high. Rose watches me devour my tragic food choices and curses god that I was blessed with my metabolism. _She_ lives for gourmet meals that take forty minutes to prepare and has a love affair I can't fucking _fathom_ for vegan and vegetarian options, and yet she's the one with the hips that don't lie and the thunder thighs. I eat like a New Yorker and end up with a body like LA trash. Vice versa. Really, it's cosmically unfair.

I sneak a glance over at Karkat. I remember how I'd seen his ribs through his mesh shirt, that night in Ibiza a month and a half ago. He'd had an ass that didn't quit and a round face, but I could still tell he was underfed. Now, he's got some meat on his bones. It suits him, in all honesty. He isn't a chubber or anything. He just looks less like he's living in a hotel and walking the streets. 

He looks more like he has a home.

I like that thought. I like the thought of Karkat safe, happy, content, warm, full. I like the thought of Karkat belonging somewhere. I like it somewhere so deep down in whatever is left of my soul that it's kind of staggering. I haven't known him for that long.

Guess this is what happens when someone saves your life.

"So," I say, following Siri's directions toward Mr. Jingles and his trees. "You've never done Christmas."

"I already fucking said I didn't, dickwad," Karkat grumbles. I go to tease him about it but there's something kind of reflective in his voice that makes me stop. I look over. He's gazing out the window. There are decorations everywhere. ‘Tis the season, and all.

He's quiet and thoughtful for so long that the sound of his slightly-too-loud voice almost makes me jump. "I used to walk down the streets in Ibiza, this time of year," he says. There's this kind of reverence in his voice. Not something I've really heard before. "I'd never seen anything like it with the fucking lights just blasting from everything and all the fake snow? So weird." He sighs. "Never seen anything like it," he repeats, "but fuck me if it didn't all just seem _familiar_. It would make my gut clench and it was like... like if I could just sidle a bit and reach out sideways, somehow, I could get ahold of all that shit I just couldn't quite remember! But... I never could." He sneaks a little glance at me, sees that I'm watching him, and blushes furiously, turning away with a glare. "Who even gives a flying shit, though? It's not like -- it's just some weird ass fucking deja vu shit, okay?"

"Okay," I agree, and he immediately relaxes again. I've started to get the feeling that Karkat is actually a pretty sensitive guy, and that's why he's a prickly fucking hedgehog about... mostly everything, and the best way to deal with him is to just make sure he knows that everything is cool.

We stop at a red light. The passenger in the car beside us goes wide-eyed and then holds up his phone. The flash goes off. Another headline on some gossip blog is born. I turn it over in my head. Do I care?

Kind of?

Not really.

Not the way that I usually do.

Light turns green; I get moving. I can't tell if I've come to some sort of epiphany and everything is smooth sailing from now on or what. Like, maybe I've reached a Shangri-la of who gives a fuck and magically, none of the shit that's always wrecked me really matters anymore. Or maybe I've just cracked. Seeing the Empress and having my little episode just made me crazy and I'm in the middle of history's most cozily domestic psychotic break.

"Your destination is on the left," Siri says helpfully. Well, okay. This psychotic break is about to get holly fuckin' jolly.

There are speakers mounted all over the parking lot as I pull into a space. They're playing Jingle Bell Rock. Karkat climbs out and waits patiently by the door for me while I lock the doors and get my phone. I can't help but notice he's toe-tapping and quietly slapping his thigh in time with the music. He's mouthing along with the lyrics. I grin.

"Yo," I say, as we make our way towards the forest of evergreens just waiting for people to cut them down and drag them home. "If you've never really done Christmas, how do you know the words?"

He shoots me a look. "Mean girls," he retorts. "Obviously."

I throw back my head and laugh. Right, of course. Of course Karkat's secondhand knowledge of Western Christmas traditions comes from iconic movies for teenage girls. "Fuck," I say, shaking my head. "Un-fucking-believable."

My phone buzzes as we head into the trees. I kind of want to ignore it, sure that it's one of the many aspects of my life I've decided that I'd really rather just fucking not deal with. Karkat has got this look on his face, something between wonder and awe and guarded suspicion. He's looking up at the trees, craning his neck. He trails his fingers along the reaching needles as we head down the aisle. It's so tempting to just... watch him, like some sort of creeper. I realize that despite (I take a second to make sure) his ass still being absolutely _stunning_ , it's his face and all of its microexpressions that's hard to look away from.

Except that my phone keeps vibrating.

I sigh and dig it out.

TT: I feel like you have the right to know that my google alert for you is currently, as you would say, 'blowing up.'  
TT: Gossip columns are having the time of their lives.  
TT: 'Dave Strider eats his weight in greasy food.'  
TT: 'Dave Strider chauffeuring young paramour around the Hills.'  
TT: Oh, what's this? 'Dave Strider buying a Christmas tree.'  
TT: That one can't be you.  
TT: I refuse to believe.  
TT: Alien empresses who will drown humanity beneath the polar ice caps are all well and good, but you engaged in _seasonal observances_?  
TT: Imagine!  
TG: ho ho ho motherfucker  
TT: Ah, well, this would explain it. You've been bodysnatched by Saint Nick.  
TG: nah still me  
TG: woke up in a weird mood thats all  
TT: I'd say.  
TT: Are you quite alright?  
TG: haha idk  
TG: probably not  
TG: not sure hard to say  
TG: im definitely whacked right the fuck off  
TG: fuck  
TG: that didn't go in the direction i wanted it to i was going for more of a hilarious word salad kind of thing  
TT: And landed squarely in Masturbation Central, as it goes.  
TG: sounds like my kind of place  
TT: Sigh.  


I smile down at my phone. Since last night, our conversation, and that stupid fucking joke she sent Karkat, things feel a bit less... strained. A bit more like they did before.

But I need to lay down the law here.

TG: ok look  
TG: heres the honest to god truth right now rose: i literally dont fucking care  
TG: fucking  
TG: straight up  
TG: zero care  
TG: i might be having a fucking episode or something idk  
TG: like tomorrow ill wake up caring  
TG: caring double  
TG: maximum caring  
TG: care bear fucking stare  
TG: BUT  
TG: that will be tomorrow and today i dont give one single FUCK and its kind of the best feeling ever and im going to ride it all the way to the north pole even if im having some sort of mental breakdown  
TT: Well.  
TG: hella  
TG: so  
TG: basically  
TG: i know that people are taking pics and vids and shit and posting them everywhere and people are going crazy but like  
TG: also  
TG: fuck em  
TG: i dont give a FUCK  
TG: if that makes sense  
TT: I can honestly say that it does not, but I think you've adequately communicated the total of fucks you give.  
TT: Just confirm for me: is it zero total fucks?  
TG: hell fucking yes  
TG: gold star  
TT: Thank you.  
TT: I've always been especially good at absorbing information.  
TG: haha  
TG: so like  
TG: i kinda just dont want to hear it ok  
TT: Hear what, exactly?  
TG: like what perez hilton and the daily mail and the enquirer and idk whoever  
TG: colour me totally uninterested in your google alerts  
TT: My Google alerts.  
TG: right  
TG: fuck your google alerts right to hell  
TG: is basically what im saying  
TT: But they're so well-curated.  
TG: yeah but  
TG: i literally dont fucking care and dont want to hear about it  


Her reply doesn't come right away. I see the three dots as she thumbs out a response, and then they vanish. They come back. Vanish again. I move down the aisle of trees, following Karkat, and then looking back at my phone. She doesn't like it, the idea of me just tuning out from the social and brand-related consequences of whatever the fuck I'm doing here. She might be the smart one. But if she's going to be weird about it, I'll put this fucking phone on airplane, just try me.

Finally:

TT: Oh, all right.  
TT: But I'm bookmarking the especially good ones for later.  


I grin.

TG: fuck yeah   


She doesn't reply and it's a really, really nice feeling, knowing that she's respecting my wishes. Look at me, therapist I never actually tried to communicate with. I fucking _set a boundary_. Holy _shit._

My shoe goes into something muddy, and I make a face, looking up.

Oh, shit.

Some brilliant soul has hooked up a fake snow machine in back, here. It shoots out over the trees and falls lazily down between them. The ground is mucky from the wet, but the trees look gorgeous, and it's easy to forget that we're in SoCal when fresh evergreens covered in frosty white surround us.

Karkat is just standing there, staring up at the sky. There's something about his face that makes my heart squeeze, and he reaches up and cups his hands as if he's trying to capture each flake and take it home with it. Surrounded by Christmas trees, with snow on his shoulders and in his hair and clinging to his long eyelashes, I can't help but feel something I've been trying to ignore for a solid decade.

I hold up my phone and get the camera out. My fingers are shaking but I try and chill as I hit the video button and then thumb record. _Action,_ I imagine.

I pan the camera up Karkat. He's standing on a patch of grass that's actually keeping the snow, which makes a really neat image in the midst of the brown muck. I pull the camera up his legs, past his waist, and then focus in on his face. He's blinking guilelessly, lashes touching his cheeks.

There's something here and I have to catch it.

He moves.

He looks my way, eyes sliding over almost shyly. But when he sees the phone and -- presumably -- the glowing red light, his cheeks flush and he takes a hurried step back, raising his hands as if he's going to fight me. "Cut it the fuck out!" he snaps. "No pictures, get that shit out of my face! What's _wrong_ with you?!" He actually takes a half-step towards me, like he's going to start something.

I hold my hands up in the air, helplessly. "Whoa!" I say. "Whoa. Bro. It's cool. Sorry. Just... you looked nice, I thought..."

"I looked _nice_?" He blushes even darker. Or is that anger that colours him? It's hard to tell, but this isn't his usual prickliness. "I don't -- _delete_ that shit!" he growls, and then turns and stomps off.

I'm left standing there. I play back what I filmed. And then snort and shake my head and feel that fucking weight in my chest, the _reason_ I'd been ignoring that feeling for so long. The image isn't right. It feels fake. Karkat looks like he's posing. It isn't real. I wanted to capture the moment, but all I managed was a shitty simulacrum of it.

It doesn't hurt me much to drag the file to the trash.

And Karkat wonders why I don't try and make "good" movies. I shove my hands in my pockets.

I take my sweet time catching up to him. I'm suddenly terrified that I broke something. Honestly, he's pretty much always a little wolverine, but it doesn't usually feel quite that... I don't know. Harsh? Intense? _Real_? I drag my feet a bit, getting my shoes gunky in the meantime, but when I find Karkat, he's standing in front of a towering evergreen tree and he shoots me a little glance.

"I don't like my picture taken," he says.

"Hey," I say, so relieved it actually kind of hurts in my chest. He's not furious. He's not going to leave me. "It's cool, bro. Tons of people do, it's normal."

"No," he says, shaking his head furiously. "It's not like just camera shy bullshit, it's fucking -- I just -- something always seems _wrong_ in them and I hate thinking that -- look, I just don't like it!" He takes a second like he's going to say something more, and then shakes his head again and turns to look at the tree, instead. "This is the one," he says.

"Dude," I say, trying not to over-examine that bunch of words he'd just tossed at me and left there. "No fucking way, it's huge."

"Your house is huge, you doddering ignoramus!"

"Right but, like, how are we going to get it home?"

"Aren't you the richest asshole in the state?"

"Yeah, no, Mark Zuckerberg has me beat. That asshole keeps outbidding me at charity auctions, by the way, and therefore he can go right to hell. It's for charity, man, be cool."

Karkat plants his feet, crosses his arms, and looks up at me with a ferocity that kind of makes me sway on my feet. "This is the one," he repeats.

I take a second and examine it again. It's stately and tall and honestly, Karkat is onto something. It's gorgeous. It looks kind of like a photoshopped version of a Christmas tree. Like, this is how a Christmas tree would look like on the cover of Cosmo. This tree would give all the other trees appearance anxiety. Real trees have curves, man.

"This thing has got to be pretty old," I say. "Gonna be a chunk of change, that's for sure. Can you imagine how many lights and balls and shit it's going to take to wire this thing up?"

"Again with the 'you're rich as fucking Midas' here, asshat." He looks up, shakes his head, and actually gives me a smile. My eyes focus in on the blunt wedge of his canine tooth. "Look. I want this one, okay? Let's just get this one."

Kind of hard to argue. Especially when there's some fucking crossed-wires deja vu strobing in the back of my brain. Why does that shit always happen around him? It's his fucking _teeth_ now that seem weirdly familiar? God.

I toss a jaunty salute and an exaggerated sigh. "Demanding motherfucker," I say. "Aight, waddle under there and get me the tag off the trunk. Let's take this bitch home."

My heart skips a beat as I think about decorating this thing with Karkat Vantas at my side.


	20. Interlude 6: April 13th, 1994 // BREAKING NEWS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

"I've got popcorn!"

Rose's roommate bustled into the TV room with two huge bowls overflowing with wonderfully smelling buttery goodness. Dave, who'd eaten nothing but packets of ramen crushed against his dashboard with the seasoning sprinkled on top all the way across the fucking country, felt his stomach gurgle from his position on the floor.

"You're going to have to share a bowl with Sarah," Rose told him, accepting one of the bowls for herself. She balanced it to one side of her lap. The other side of her lap was occupied by her current girlfriend's head. Dave, head craned to see them up on the couch, felt his attention switch from popcorn to lesbians, focusing in on the way Rose's hands stroked gently through Lisa's dark hair, how Lisa half-turned and gave her a smile before reaching to grab a handful of popcorn.

Was it such a bad thing, to long with every part of him, that someone (Rose) would smile at him like that? That someone (Rose) would touch him so gently and affectionately? That someone (Rose) would treat him with such casual, friendly intimacy?

He wrestled his eyes away and focused on the TV screen, which was playing the local Boston news. "Sure," he said. "Sarah and me, we're tight, right?"

"We just met half an hour ago," Rose's roommate said with a laugh, dropping down into the couch just behind and to the right of him.

"Okay, yeah, but I can already tell this is fuckin' balling." Dave twisted to wiggle his eyebrows at her.

"You're so funny. You talk like Tupac but you sound like Andy Griffith." Sarah dipped her head and flushed and giggled, and Dave realized with real shock that she, um, she might be into him.

Oh.

Uh.

He grabbed some popcorn and turned back to the TV. "Uh, so." He cleared his throat hard, but this shit had taken _seed_ and was sprouting. Rose's roommate probably saw her and her girlfriend hanging off each other all the time. Was lonely, sexually frustrated. Cute. Some kind of second generation asian immigrant, so, like, exotic. And far away from his life back in Texas that it could just be... just something quick and easy, a way to touch and feel, a way to play house for the week he was here...

"I don't suppose you mind putting the first tape in, Sarah," Rose's girlfriend said. "We're a little tied up, here."

Dave didn't turn around and look at them. At Rose's hair -- blonde again, now -- covering half her face as she gazed down at Lisa. At her black-lipsticked mouth curving into that playful little smile. At her long black and purple nails stroking Lisa's face. Instead, he watched Sarah let out a big, exaggerated sigh, heft herself up off the couch, and head over to the VCR.

Yeah, he would. It would be so nice to just... yeah.

Fuck, he really needed a cigarette.

"I'm gonna eat all your popcorn before you get back," he called, and she laughed, and sure. Sure. Why not, right?

"You're going to love it, Dave," Rose said firmly. He could feel her shift behind him. "The interplay between Agents Mulder and Scully is absolutely entrancing, and while the individual weekly plotlines occasionally rely on logical fallacies, they're very fun."

"Okay, Roger Ebert," Dave drawled. Rose kicked him in the shoulder.

Sarah slipped the first tape from the leaning tower of cassettes into the VCR. "Okay," she said, grabbing the remote and stepping back. "It's channel 3 to get the VCR, right? Sorry, I never use this!"

"Yes," Rose said. "You need to put it in as 'oh three,' though, or you'll end up on channel 30. I -- _wait_! Don't change it!"

Her voice was so sharp that it knocked Dave out of his shitty swirling morass of thoughts immediately. He focused his attention on what was actually happening onscreen. The newscaster was talking beside a graphic of a fiery meteor hurtling through the sky. Dave's stomach clenched.

"Breaking news. A four-metre asteroid has just made impact in northern Washington, destroying a small commercial block," the sober-faced caster said. "Investigators on sight are reporting 5 deaths and considerable injuries."

"Geez," Sarah said softly.

"Yeah, crazy," Lisa added.

As if either of them had any idea what he and Rose were feeling. Rose had been charting every meteor and asteroid that had hit the earth for the last three hundred years. Dave watched shooting stars and felt his heart clench at every one. The same question, the same mystery, haunted them both. _Could our stories be a coincidence? Or are we special, somehow? Are there more like us?_

Dave watched hoping that the announcer would mention an infant found in the aftermath of the chaos. A piece for the puzzle that was his life, and Rose's. Some small hint towards answers.

He didn't expect the familiar face that replaced the meteor graphic. He didn't expect the way that his heart seized and his stomach clenched.

"Among the confirmed dead is beloved actor and comedian James 'Johnny' Crocker," the newscaster said. He sounded upset. Dave felt like the world was ending. "Crocker, the adopted son of baked good empress Betty Crocker, was known for his portrayal of Judge Johnny Stone on NBC's own Night Court. He was near the centre of the impact zone. Medical examiners report that they believe he died instantly, and most likely never even knew the meteor was coming."

The jolly-looking old gentleman stared out of the screen. Dave found he couldn't look away from those intensely blue eyes. He remembered throwing himself in front of a black sedan. Of the way the actor looked at him. Of his buck-toothed smile and his gentle, lined face and his bristling black mustache and his thick, black-rimmed glasses. At the way he'd felt like... like...

He swallowed hard. There was a lump in his throat. Behind him, he heard Rose crying quietly. Lisa was murmuring. Oh, honey, were you a big fan? I loved Night Court when I was a kid. He had such a warmth about him, didn't he? I'm so sorry, Susan.

As if she understood. As if anybody could understand.

Just the fact that Rose's girlfriend fucking called her _Susan_ said everything, didn't it? Nobody else in the entire world would ever get it.

He barely got it, himself.

"In honour of this beloved actor and in respect of this senseless tragedy, we are cancelling our current schedule for the evening and will be running episodes of Night Court. Stay tuned as this story develops."

"I can barely believe it," Sarah said with a sigh. "That's so sad. He always seemed like such a nice old man, didn't he? When I was growing up, he was the only person on TV who looked like me. I always liked him a lot." She shook her head and raised the remote.

"No," Rose said. Her voice was thick and trembling, and Dave clenched down on his urge to join her in tears. He didn't cry. "No, let's just... we can start the X-Files tomorrow. Dave is here for a whole week. Let's just... watch Night Court, all right?" She took a deep, shaking breath. "Doesn't John deserve that much?"

John. Not Johnny.

Somehow, it felt right.

"Yeah," Dave said quietly. "I, uh, yeah. That sounds good. Let's just do that, okay?"


	21. I Get Along With Old-Timers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> extremely minor and brief nsfw in this chapter

Karkat and I are watching Love Actually and he's leaning up against my side.

This is how I found myself in this situation:

Karkat gets it in a giant pile of DVDs he ordered from Netflix. He's never seen it before and it's a Christmas movie and it's Christmas Eve, so. He sidles up to me all awkward. Asks if I wanted to watch it with him. I say yes because he's straight up bashful and mumbling and shit and it's cute as fuck. We make popcorn and I flip the switch on the fucking nuclear reactor that powers the ludicrous amount of lights we strung up around the Palazzo. We settle onto the couch, enough lights to land an actual fucking aircraft twinkling around us, and Hugh Grant starts to make a really pretentious speech about airport terminals which like, come on, Hugh, they are really not that inspiring, it's a fucking airport, where hopes and dreams go to die.

It's the first time we've actually watched a movie together like this. And by that I mean, shit, we watch movies together all the time, because Karkat has become a fucking Netflix goblin and I've spent every day since we set up the tree tripping over stacks of DVDs. He's always got something playing and I've started sauntering in halfway through, flopping down on his favourite couch with him, and propping my feet up. In the last two weeks I have watched the last half of:

\- You've Got Mail  
\- Notting Hill  
\- Leap Year  
\- 10 Things I Hate About You  
\- Mr. Deeds  
\- No Strings Attached  
\- like fifty more of these you get the point

When I was younger I hemmed and hawed and cried chick flick like any self-respecting (or self-loathing) kid from Texas, but it's not like that anymore. It's kind of just like... I get how the sausage is made. I'm not saying that means I can make a good sausage (I direct your attention to any of my shitty movies) but, like. Oh, look. The music is swelling. Oh, look. Another predictable, stock line I've seen five times this week already. Oh, we're doing the grand romantic gesture thing, now? Okay, I guess.

It's a magic trick and the misdirection is meant to work on someone not me. Specifically, it's meant to work on Karkat Vantas.

When I fall onto the couch halfway through one of these things, he's always looking starry-eyed and entranced. Sometimes, I kind of just watch him, wondering how someone who should logically be jaded as fuck can take _such_ joy from such predictable love stories. Sometimes, I peer at the screen, watching Adam Sandler's gormless face labour through awful jokes (Sorry Adam, but... damn) and try to see what it is that he's seeing. Usually, though, I just get right down to the business of pointing out the parts that seem especially dumb or funny to me until he gets cranky, starts waving his arms around, and chases me off.

Love Actually is new. Love Actually is him coming to me, hat in hands, with an invite. It's me accepting. It's us preparing snacks. It's Karkat rambling about how he's never been able to catch this one before. It's the two of us settling down onto Karkat's favourite couch, together, putting the bowl of popcorn between us, pressing play.

I'm not dragging him off somewhere or invading something that he was already doing.

I'm here because he wants me to be here.

Fast forward a bit to where I'm good-naturedly taking offense to this movie's portrayal of us poor, maligned Americans. Karkat is telling me to shut the fuck up because he really wants to hear Prime Minister Hugh Grant's World War III commencement speech where he compares dicks with Billy Bob Thornton's laughable Presidential asshole. I reach in for more popcorn and come up empty. Karkat glances down, makes a face, and picks up the bowl. He puts it off to one side and then, as if it's the most natural thing in the world, he scoots closer to me.

The weird thing, honestly, isn't how he did it. The weird thing is how I react to it in the exact same way. Like: sure, yeah, this is what I was expecting. I raise an arm to wrap it around him and pull him in closer so I can feel him rumbling happily against my chest. I pause halfway up. I realize what I'm doing. My nose prickles like I'm going to cry, my spine goes straight, and it's all I can do to very casually reach up to scratch my head, fix my hair a bit, then put my arm back down where it was.

Any second, Karkat is going to come to his senses and jerk away. Make some comment. He'll throw the bowl, leave the room. The thing that's building between us will be shattered. I'll have fucked everything up, just like I did with Rose. I fuck everything up, I get a fucking boner for every inappropriate fucking person I care about and _it always fucks everything up._

But he doesn't move.

There's a whole lot of shit spinning through my head. I'm standing in the eye of my own hurricane. Two main things are happening, starting with:

1\. I still haven't had sex since that night at the rave in Ibiza. This is the longest I've gone since I was nineteen. Since I'd done Rose's roommate on the couch the night Johnny Crocker died, and she'd said my name into my ear and wrapped her arms around me and I'd realized that all you needed to do to make someone touch you, hold you, care about you, was to get them to want to fuck you. After I'd come way faster than I want to admit, I'd eaten Sarah's pussy until she was just a trembling mass of limbs. It had almost (almost) been better than getting off, myself, because of the way she stroked my back, ran her hands through my hair, nuzzled under my chin, and told me how wonderful I was. It was the most physical affection anyone had ever given me. It was like unlocking the secret to everlasting life, infinite wealth, eternal youth. For as long as the sex lasted, I was _connected_.

Nobody has touched me since I took Karkat back to the hotel room and then couldn't go through with it. And now, here he is again. Curling up against my side. Warm and real. Physical. And it's causing a physical reaction, which is fucked up because:

2\. fuck

I can talk to Karkat. Talk actual words, about actual things. I feel at peace with him, I feel good with him. We have fun. I like him. I think he likes me? Maybe. Probably not, fuck, who would like me? But he's gone beyond what Rose pays him for, and I think he likes me. And then there's this thing, this... this connection, these deja vu memories, the crossed wires, and though I don't remember them, I _know_ I've been having strange dreams. I can't explain it, so it's easier to avoid it, but there's something, right? There's something. 

Siri and Google have directed me to articles about imprinting, about the relationship between someone who nearly died and the person who saved them. Karkat's face was the last thing I'd seen before I passed out and the first thing I'd seen when I woke up, and that's gotta be part of it. Or is it? Because I swear, I swear that if I get right down and think about it, something called me to him that night on the boardwalk, before I took the pills, before he saved my life. So what does _that_ mean? Was I just high, is this all just my bad choices in recreational substances coming back to haunt me? Or is there something, really something, and everything has meaning?

And he's seventeen.

And yeah, okay, sure I've got a boner just from the feeling of his body heat combined with these two incredibly hot people taking their clothes off on screen, but there's more to it. The sound of his breathing seems more compelling than the sex scene. The way he's so relaxed. All that tension, that aggression, the way he always seems to be guarding himself from a blow that could come from any direction... it's all melted away. 

Put simply, my crotch boner can't compete with my heart boner.

This is all, honestly, stuff that I really don't want to think about. This is all stuff that I'm getting used to shoveling away, stuff that I don't want to deal with, stuff that I honestly hate crowding in on my thoughts and my emotions, because _he is seventeen years old_. That little fact hadn't seemed so very important when I was wallowing in the trash heap of my own life in Ibiza. Now? Now, it matters a little more every day. The gossip rags all agree that Karkat is some kind of kept boy. Karkat doesn't seem to care. I can't tell if it's because he's actually cool with it (shit oh shit does he like me?), he's hiding how much he cares about it (is anything really genuine here at all if it's true?), or because whatever landed him on the boardwalk that night has him desensitized to the very idea.

That's the thought that haunts me.

"I like it," Karkat says. Laura Linney is leaving Karl's bed, tits still flapping in the wind, to go to her mentally ill brother instead of finishing this sweet, sweet booty call. I feel like this is a weird scene to decide that you like the movie, and I point that out.

"No, that's _why_ I like it." There's none of the usual bluster or barbed wire in his voice. Instead, he's taken on this sort of analytical, lecturing tone that feels really familiar to me. Which, great, more deja vu bullshit. That's not getting old or anything. "Some of these stories follow basic simple rom-com conventions, while others subvert them. This one is interesting. It's not the way I expected this scene to play out."

"Karl looks done as fuck," I say, as the character in question sighs and falls back on the bed. His body is incredible. "Sorry, Laura, shoulda sent that shit straight to voicemail. Do not collect 200 dollars."

"No, but she _knew_ ," Karkat insists, voice raising a good decibel. "She knew that if she took the call, she was losing her chance with Karl. She's just choosing her brother."

"Not exactly romantic."

"But that's why we have scenes like this one!" I can hear Karkat smiling and it makes my heart twist. Some grand romantic gesture, of course, is happening onscreen. 

(What would Karkat say if I)

That's the kind of thought that gets banished.

Karkat doesn't move from my side. The movie continues. I actually kind of connect with a few of the plots at the end, and I can't help but think about Rose while Emma Thompson cries over her Joni Mitchell CD. I think about how bad I fucked things up. I think about the possibility of fixing it. It doesn't seem so impossible, not when it's Christmas Eve, twilight is falling, and Karkat is cuddling with me.

My phone rings when we're at the final scene. I'd set up a filter to send my publicist, my PA, and all those other bozos straight to voicemail, so I know that it isn't someone I don't want to talk to. Tempting as it is to ignore it, to see the movie out, to sit through the credits, to try and see what Karkat does next... I answer the phone instead.

"Yo."

Karkat sits up, glaring at me and shushing me and pointing furiously at the screen. "The movie's not over, asswipe."

I wave him off and he rolls his eyes. "Mr. Strider?" the phone says. "This is the gate. There's a FedEx truck here with a package. Do I have your permission to let it through?"

"Geez, dude, I forgot you were here. Yes, buzz that shit in and then go the fuck home. It's Christmas Eve."

"Of course, Mr. Strider."

"We've got mail," I say. Karkat shushes me again, and I sigh and sit tight while we finish the last three minutes. It looks like Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman might get another shot, after all. It affects me a lot more than I want to admit, still thinking about Rose and my stupid mistakes.

I miss Karkat's warmth.

Twilight has turned everything purple and blue as we head down to the foyer. The nuclear reactor's worth of lights now sparkle and gleam in a million colours through the halls, coiling over everything, hung on all surfaces, wrapped around the railings of the stairs. Karkat had filled an entire Wal-Mart shopping cart with lights. It had come out to almost a thousand dollars. He'd looked almost maniacally delighted with the total.

"Winter fucking wonderland," I say when we reach the last step and I head for the door. The tree is here, because nowhere else was tall enough for it. It towers, strung with lights and bulbs. I try not to look too hard at the few gifts wrapped under the tree, like I've been trying to forget they exist for a week. It's like they're made of sugar and promises and if I so much as acknowledge them, they're just going to dissolve into wisps of sweet memory.

Five minutes later, I’m standing in the same place and thinking: holy shit.

It would take an entire _tidal wave_ to dissolve all these gifts, and we’d be wading through sweet memory for a week. The FedEx guy, who looks a lot less shocked than he should, considering he just emptied his _entire truck_ , holds up a clipboard. "Sign," he says tonelessly.

My eyes go right for the return address while I follow his order.

Well. Of course.

As soon as the guy is gone, looking slightly less morose now that his (hopefully) last delivery of the day is done and he can go home to his family, Karkat starts going through the boxes, both those wrapped in coloured paper and those wrapped with packing tape, which, when opened, reveal smaller boxes wrapped in coloured paper. "Shit," he says. "Shit! There's so much! What was she even thinking?"

I've already got my phone out.

TG: yo i got a real problem here   
TT: Yes? What is it?   
TG: well   
TG: some crazy ho named susan smith from new york fuckin buried me in cardboard boxes   
TG: i think this might be an act of war   
TG: some sort of game of passive aggressive oneupmanship   
TG: whatever it is im afraid for my life rose   
TG: this woman...   
TG: theres nothing sane left in her   
TT: That does sound extremely serious.   
TG: yeah   
TG: fuck what do i do   
TT: I think you really have no choice.   
TT: Who knows what could be in all those boxes?   
TT: I shiver to even consider the possibilities.   
TT: You simply have to open all of them, and search the contents thoroughly.   
TT: No expensive, thoughtful, carefully chosen package can be left uninspected.   
TT: Otherwise, the consequences would be more dire than I can imagine.

"Oh my _god_!" Karkat shouts. "You tell that high-minded fucking spinster that if she wants to spend Christmas furiously stimulating herself to her own generosity, she isn't going to get any spank bank material from me! I'm not for sale!"

Someone less versed in Karkat-speak might think this is ungrateful and kind of disgusting, but I think I'm getting to know him better, because I'm pretty sure this is effusive, amazed, grateful as fuck, and, uh, still kind of disgusting.

TG: karkat says thanks   
TT: Oh, I'm sure.

"Fuck," Karkat says, stepping back and surveying the absolute chaos of boxes. "They're not going to fit under the tree!"

"I dunno, bro, this is a hella tree," I say. I look back down at my phone to see that Rose has gone on without me.

TT: I'm glad that they got there on time.   
TT: Really, I was hoping for a last minute arrival. Very dramatic.   
TT: That is to say, I will pass my consternation on to Miss Smith. Shame on her, really. Disrupting this poor man's first Christmas he decorated for himself.   
TT: There are several in the mix that I marked to be opened Christmas Eve.   
TT: It isn't necessary, of course.   
TT: I just thought Karkat might enjoy being able to stretch the experience across two separate days.   
TT: This is really all for him, you know.   
TT: Honestly, I feel like his doting aunt in this particular scenario, but it's not like that. I actually quite like him.   
TT: Did you know he's a voracious reader?   
TG: no   
TG: i didnt actually

I sneak a glance at Karkat. With how often I see him in front of the boob tube watching Sleepless in Seattle or whatever, I always just assumed he wasn't the cerebral type. It feels right, though, in the same way that strange little things -- gestures, movements, phrases, moments -- have felt right.

TT: I enjoy discussing books with him quite a bit.   
TT: His tastes align almost scarily well with my own more guilty pleasures.   
TG: haha   
TG: i knew it   
TG: nobody who loves sandra bullock movies so much could be sitting in on Steinbeck book club with you

I watch the three dots as Rose works on her next reply. Karkat is sorting out boxes. I truly do not understand his need to organize shit.

TT: He's considerably more intelligent than you give him credit for, Dave.

I stare at the message. I think about it.

TG: yeah maybe

He hasn't stopped surprising me yet, after all. 

TT: Actually, I had some questions along those lines.   
TT: He and I mostly talk about books, films... stories. We don't speak much about his life.   
TT: I'm wondering if he's confided much in you?   
TG: uh yeah no   
TG: he's confided literally zero   
TG: so   
TG: hope you weren't counting on that   
TT: Mn.   
TT: No, but it is disappointing.   
TT: I   
TT: Hm   
TT: Do you mind calling me, Dave? I think some of this might be better discussed in a more immediate medium.   
TG: what   
TG: sure fine i can do that   
TG: is something wrong   
TT: Perhaps.   
TG: fuck   
TG: fuck you dammit i fuckin hate that   
TG: someones all coy like ooh maybe somethings wrong ooh   
TG: and i start trying to piece together where i fucked it up   
TG: lay it on me sister   
TT: Dave.   
TT: You did nothing at all wrong.   
TT: It's more just something... curious.   
TG: sure that's way less spooky.   
TT: Please just call me?   
TG: ugh fine

"Yo." I snap my fingers to get Karkat's attention. He looks up at me, and his eyes are so strangely guileless. He's started moving gifts to me to one side of the tree and gifts to him to the other, and arranging them by height. "Yeah, that's not neurotic," I say.

His eyebrows pull down all at once. "Fuck you."

I laugh. "Gotta make a call," I say, holding up the phone and taking the stairs two at once.

"I'm going to relabel all of yours to say they're for me," Karkat calls after me.

"Okay," I reply.

I hadn't quite realized how much I'd missed Rose's voice until I hear her on the other side of the line. "Thank you for calling." She always sounds so perfectly elegant, every word chosen in advance. Rose doesn't speak, she recites lines rehearsed lightning fast in her own mind.

"Yeah, it's cool. What's up."

"I've been thinking about Karkat," she says. I hear a siren in the background. Christmas Eve in New York City: the shittiest thing I can possibly imagine. "About the way he swears."

I snort. "You mean, often and creatively?"

"I mean," Rose corrects, "like a native speaker. Believe it or not, natural-sounding profanity is actually one of the most difficult aspects of a language to learn."

"I'm not sure if I would call Karkat's language _natural_ ," I say. "I mean just five minutes ago he called you a high-minded fucking spinster."

She actually laughs. "I'm writing that down for a book," she says, and then sobers. "But actually, that's what I'm talking about. You only speak one language, so it's difficult to describe to you, but Karkat never misplaces a fuck."

"Laugh my ass off," I say, outloud, like we're chatting. "That sounds like a meme. Oh dear, I seem to have misplaced all of my fucks. I am now out of fucks, and have not a fuck to give."

" _Obviously_ , Dave, by 'misplace' I mean, literally 'put it in the wrong place.'"

"Yeah, but. Is there ever really a _wrong_ place for a fuck, Rose? These are the questions we need to ask."

She sighs mightily. "And to think I hoped an actual phone call would avert this sort of thing. Yes, it's funny. It's very funny. Fuck is a delightful word and there is no way I can make my point without sounding like we're doing an R-rated version of Who's On First."

I snort and lean back against the wall. "Okay," I say. "Okay, fine. I'm being cool. What's up with Karkat misplacing his fucks." Dammit, it's still hilarious.

"Different languages blaspheme in different ways. Learning the rules for how to do it in a new one is incredibly hard. Classes, books, teachers... none of them are really interested in showing you how to swear like a native. There's an artistry to where you place your fucks. Stop laughing. My point is that, for his age and ostensible background, Karkat just swears too naturally to have learned English as a second or third language, and yet his accent is too strong and too unique to have learned it as a first."

I have no idea what she's talking about. What she's trying to say, _or_ what it means.

"Okay," I say, finally, because I'm not sure what else to say. "So..."

"I don’t entirely know yet," Rose says. "Have you been reading the news at all?"

"Some." Now we're getting into actual important territory, and not just the placement of Karkat's fucks. Shit, why does that never stop being funny. I focus on that to soothe the dread I feel when I remember Betty Crocker at the party that night, horns, jewels, and anglerfish teeth all glistening. "Kind of avoiding it."

"Mn. I understand. Me, on the other hand -- I've been scouring it. Not the main headlines. I don't want to see that face any more than you do. But what _isn't_ being reported. Or rather..." She pauses. I hear her breath on the other side of the line. I remember talking this same way when we were kids, when I'd sneak the phone out to the patio, when her voice was the only thing tethering me to this planet. "There was a major sinkhole in Maple Valley last month. It devoured an entire house and its occupants. This happened _on_ Rebranding Day. Some eyewitness reports claim it happened at the same _time_. But it keeps being buried. No one will report on it."

She takes a moment. I can just see her running a hand through her hair. What's she wearing? Who is she with? It's Christmas.

"Some neighbours claim the father and daughter living there had the name Crocker," Rose says. "But that keeps disappearing, too."

"What are you saying?" I ask. This is making me nervous. One light on a string is flickering, and the conversation is lending it a sinister tone. It's like some apparition is trying to communicate with me, and I just really want to go be with Karkat.

"I'm not sure," Rose tells me. The silence on the line seems to vibrate. Then, carefully, like her words are walking on a bed of nails, she murmurs. "Do you remember Jade English?"

I suck air. I force myself to blow it out. I clench my teeth. "Crazy old broad? Yeah, what about her."

"Did you ever...?"

"Of course not." I sound a lot harsher than I mean to.

Rose swallows hard. "Yes, I suppose not. I didn't either, but..." she sighs. "I'm looking into her more, now. I think there's something here, Dave. I think this all ties together. It all leads to what we're supposed to do."

"And what's that? Die?" I ask bitterly. I'm shocked at the venom in my own voice. I thought I was over this. I thought I'd turned a new leaf. I feel like I'm going to be sick.

Rose is quiet. Deathly quiet, and I can feel some degree of hopelessness from her and it feels like shit. That's that, then. I finally infected her. But then she takes a deep breath and there's flinty determination in her voice when she says: "Certainly. But first? Fight."

I want to be inspired and galvanized by her words, but all I can feel is dread and... and something very much like _annoyance._ I'm not ready for this shit. I'm still wrecked and wasted. I've dragged my fucking soul over broken glass through hell and it's not even scabbed all the way over yet. It's not _time_ for this shit. I woke up wanting bacon and eggs and Christmas because those things are part of the world I want to be a part of. The life I want to live.

I didn't survive that night in Ibiza just to jump into a losing battle.

"Rose," I say, and I hate how close my voice is to cracking. I feel it rising up in front of me again: the cliff of despair.

She's still. Then she murmurs, "I thought you were doing better."

"Yeah, fuck, but better isn't _better_ ," I say, blinking fast and hard.

"If you're not ready for this yet --"

"I don't want to do this _ever_ ," I say. I make a hard fist. I try to release it, clench and relax, like a mantra, but I can't loosen my muscles. "I don't get it. I don't understand. What's the point, Rose? You saw the future. You had a fucking seizure and _saw_. Everyone dies. Everyone. I don't want to throw my life onto a fucking funeral pyre for a resistance that means _nothing_. I just want to..."

I think of Karkat, down there sorting out gifts. The way he felt against my side, warm and real. The way that sometimes, in a way that hurts, a way I try to block out because it doesn't make any sense, he feels like _home_.

I'm so fucked up. He's only seventeen. But when I think about him, his enormous eyes and shy smiles and furious glares, the cliff of despair retreats far enough that I can see the possibility of something... better.

"I just want to live," I say quietly.

Rose is silent. When she finally inhales, I hear her breath wobble. "Well," she says, and there's a hint of smile in her voice. "Well. That's a step in the right direction, isn't it?"

I want to say _I think some fucked up sideways part of me I can't reconcile is falling in love with the kid you sent to babysit me._ But Rose still thinks Karkat was a drug dealer, not a hooker, and once I open that door, I can't shut it again.

I've disappointed her enough, tonight.

"I'm sorry I'm leaving you alone with this," I say, instead.

"I'll handle it."

"But --"

"I'll handle it, Dave. Get well. _That's_ what matters."

Two weeks ago, I'd have told her that "get well" seemed like a more impossible order than anything else she could come up with.

But when I think about Karkat and bacon and eggs and cutting down Christmas trees and Love Actually, it isn't so crazy.

"Yeah," I say. "Yeah. Okay." At some point -- I can't even remember when -- I slumped down the wall. Now, I struggle up to my feet. My legs are half asleep. I hop on pins and needles. Twilight is gone; it's full dark now. The lights, even that janky one that no longer seems half so unsettling, are beautiful. "I'm going to go check if Karkat has those Christmas Eve gifts sorted out from the pack," I say. "Gonna get myself some sweet ass haul tonight, or I'm coming after you for --"

All the lights go out, plunging me into pitch darkness.


	22. Cause My Name's a Reminder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

I'm not proud to admit I yelp. Loudly. It's _pitch_ fucking black and there are white fireworks in my eyes as they try and adjust to the sudden darkness. Animal panic settles into my chest.

Karkat shouts downstairs.

"Dave?" Rose asks against my ear.

My phone.

Panic abates almost instantly as I realize that I've got my phone. The phone will give me light and a link to the outside world. There, sweet, everything is cool. Breathe deep, bro. You're fucking fine. Everything is fucking fine.

I try not to think about how my backup geni really should be going off right now.

"Power went out," I say. My voice sounds a little thick. Come on, dude, are you afraid of the dark, now? "It's like octopus bukkake in here it's so fucking dark."

"How very evocative," Rose says dryly.

"Yeah, dude, people are always giving you the credit for your _dark, redolent imagery_ , but we all know you've been cribbing your best shit from me for years."

"Dave?" Karkat's voice floats up the stairs. "What the fuck is going on?"

His voice sounds strangely pitched, tight around the edges, and I realize that he's scared. He's freaking out, and he's calling for me.

Oh.

"Uh," I say, breathing a little hard into the phone. "Yo, Imma put you on speakerphone, cool?"

"Cool." Rose pronounces the word like she's chewing on badly flavoured rubber. I grin. She's a fucking lifeline.

When I pull the phone away from my face, it lights up, and in such darkness, that shit illuminates the hall pretty brightly in blue, watery light. "Yo, Karkat," I call, moving back towards the foyer where he is. "Everything's cool, I think. Just a power outage."

He's silent for a moment, and then calls back. "Oh my god, are you pulling on my fucking finger right now? This is Beverly fucking Hills! Do they not have some kind of basic redundancy shit set up?"

"I was wondering the same thing," Rose says, voice tinny through the phone speaker.

They're both right. And I have a generator, besides. I'm trying not to think about any of this stuff, because in the darkness, it feels really, really sinister that none of that shit is kicking into action. "Yeah, well," I say. I reach the staircase and angle my phone downwards.

The light catches something in the darkness. Two eyes, glowing like a cat's, phosphorescent burning circles, staring up at me.

"What the fuck!" I jump back a full step, heart in my throat, and I -- _fuck_ \-- I drop my phone.

"Dave?" Rose asks, voice sharp. It clatters all the way down the stairs and I wince and then curse as I hear a distinct splintering and crunching sound. _Goodbye, sweet Siri,_ I think. The blue light from the phone goes out.

"Dave?" Rose asks again, but her voice is garbled and sounds like she's an evil robot. And let me tell you, with the situation already so weird and tense, that is not a great look for her.

"He's a grease-fingered idiot and confused his phone with a goddamn slinkie," Karkat says flatly from somewhere below me in the darkness. From where I saw those two strange, catlike eyes.

"What?" Evil Robot Rose says. "I can't hear you, what's going on?"

"Dude," I say, heart racing. "Come up here, okay? Get up here, like, now."

"What? Why?" Karkat asks.

I close my eyes and count to three. It doesn't calm me down that behind my eyelids looks the same as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed does. "Look, I just... I might have seen something down there. I don't know. A cat, or something."

"How would a cat have gotten in here?" Karkat asks suspiciously.

"I'm going to try calling back," Evil Rose says.

"Look, I don't know!" I snap. Did I _imagine_ it? But no, no fucking way, I definitely saw something. I'm sure I did, I'm _sure_ of it. I can't help but think of the yellow sclera Betty Crocker had. Those looked like they might gleam in direct light...

I shiver.

My phone starts ringing. And really, there's nothing like the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff theme song to cut through a sense situation. Suddenly, it all seems really silly. The power is out. It's just a power outage, that's _all_. Why are we all acting like we're in a fucking Roland Emmerich movie, here? My phone light had probably just caught _Karkat's_ eyes, and in some weird trick of the light, they'd _seemed_ to have some reflection, or... yeah.

I shake my head. Come on. Stop being hysterical, here.

"I think that's down by you," I say, sounding mostly sane.

"Ugh," Karkat says. "I'm waiting until you're asleep and then changing your ringtone. My ear canals are being viscerally assaulted by this ungodly trash."

I laugh. He kind of laughs, too, nervously, and I hear him fumbling around.

"Found it," he says, and then, a moment later, growls. "The screen isn't coming on. It feels cracked. Good job, asshole."

"Yeah, well, I try."

It's dark and the terrible cacophony of artifacted sound is even starting to bother _me_ a bit. I think Karkat is probably trying to make my phone work. I want to go down to him, but I'm a little nervous on the stairs. It's seriously pitch black, man. The last thing either of us needs is me fucking up something as basic as _stairs_ and cracking my skull. All tumbling down them in a mass of comical limbs, like. Just ass over ankles. Just totally ragdolling it.

_I warned you about stairs, bro._

The gag comes to me from nowhere. Just like, my terrible fucking characters just had a meeting to sell their life rights, and Sweet Bro is like we should take the stairs this elevator smells like corn chips. And Jeff is like I don't know bro that's a lot of stairs you should be careful or whatever. And it's just this endless 40 storey flight of stairs, and Sweet Bro misses a step right at the top and just falls down the stairs, and then the entire movie is just lovingly shot shitpost slapstick?

Would that work? It wouldn't work, right? Why does the gag feel so brilliant? And something else. It's the same feeling I got when I came up with the characters in the first place, like they were always there and I was just discovering their gormless, badly drawn faces.

"I'm going to fucking full body _spike_ this tiny machine into the ground if it doesn't stop blasting audio sewage into my ear!" Karkat howls and I snap back to reality _(ohp! there goes gravity!)_. 

"Okay, okay!" I say. "Look, just hold up a sec, she'll realize that we're not answering and figure out something happened." More like, assume we've been blackbagged or something. The joke only stays funny for another three seconds before I start thinking, again, about how weird it is that the geni hasn't kicked in.

The phone goes silent.

Karkat breathes a sigh of relief.

"She's going to assume the worst," I say.

"I can't imagine anything _worse_ than that shit still going," Karkat grumbles.

I can, but I force myself to take a deep breath. "Okay," I say. "Where's your phone? We need a light, it's as dark as satan's asshole in here."

There's a pause. I think I hear Karkat's patting at his pockets. "I think I left it back in the viewing room."

"Okay. Sweet. Awesome. We should head over there, then. Can you, uh, get up the stairs?"

"Fuck you." I can just hear the flat annoyance in Karkat's tone. I imagine his thick brows pulled down over his eyes. I want to run my fingers through his hair. Fuck, where did that come from. "They're stairs, I can handle it."

_I warned you about stairs, bro!_

For all his bravado, he takes his time. I think he's coming up on all fours, feeling out the next stair, the way that I used to climb when I was a little kid.

"What's that?" I ask suddenly, ears straining at every sound. "Are you... carrying something with you?"

"No!" Karkat snaps, and then, immediately after, "I mean... yes. I mean... it's just something small, okay?"

What could he possibly be --

No. No way. "Are... are you dragging along something from under the _tree_?"

He's beside me now, and he comes at me with knees and elbows and lightly closed fists. "Shut up!" he says, as I laugh and fend off the blows in the dark. "It's just something small! Rose said I should open it tonight!"

"Oh my god," I say.

"No, no, stop this, you zip those plush lips right now, Dave! I'm not being weird, I'm being fucking _intelligent!_ I'll never find this one again in the dark, and Rose is going to be disappointed if I don't open it at the right time, okay?"

"Okay!" I agree with great enthusiasm, and he flails his limbs vaguely in my direction again, landing a solid kick to my shin while I laugh.

On our way to the viewing room, we pass one of the open balconies. The moon is barely a sliver, but it's more light than we get inside the house. I step close to the terrace, putting my hands on the rail. I can see the silhouettes of trees and the other buildings of my vast luxury palatial estate (fuck yeah). It takes a second to notice what I _don't_ see. "Hey, Karkat," I say, and then feel him at my side. "Check it out."

A cool wind breezes past. I sense a little shiver go through him. I fight my instinct to wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull him close.

"I don't see shit," he says, sounding a bit suspicious.

"Yeah," I agree. My stomach is doing jumping jacks. "That's what I'm saying, bro. This is _a room with a view_. You're supposed to be able to see all of Los Angeles laid out like a banquet down there, you feel me?"

"I don't see anything," he says again.

"Right. And LA on Christmas Eve? Should be lit up from fucking _space_."

Karkat gets it with a little gasp. It's cute. No, stop, this is serious. "The power is out _everywhere?_ "

"Looks like," I say.

"What are the odds of that?"

"Give me a sec to do the math. Okay, carry the one, divide by zero, and the answer is... _extremely_ fucking unlikely." LA doesn't black out. The suburbs, sure. But downtown, on a night like this, all at once? There are something like eighty layers of redundancy to make sure it doesn't happen.

 _Something_ is definitely going down.

Karkat is quiet when we get to the viewing room. He leaves my side and starts feeling around in the dark for his favourite couch. I try not to find this spooky, but damn. The room is designed to not let in any outside light. What I'd thought was pitch black before had been limned by a little bit of moonlight. This? _This_ is black as fuck.

Until it blossoms into light.

Karkat's skin looks grey in the white light from his phone. It looks weirdly good. It looks eerily like the Empress. My mind skips between the two until I can't look right at him. He's dialing a number. A second passes.

"There's no dial tone," he growls, frustrated. "I think the towers might be down."

"Try texting her," I say.

A moment goes by. "Nothing."

"Jesus, well, that's fun." I shake my head and feel my way to the closest couch. It isn't so impossible in the watery phone light. There's frescos of the northern lights on the ceiling, and I can pick them out as I lay way back. "What the balls, man."

I hear springs squeak as Karkat settles into his own couch. Blankets rustle. He's nesting again, poor little guy. "What do you think happened?" He sounds uneasy. I hate not having answers for him.

"Not a clue," I say. "But Merry fucking Christmas, I guess, right?"

Karkat makes a noncommittal noise. The couch squeaks again. "Fuck this," he says in a low growl. "It _is_ Christmas Eve, and I'm in America. I'm going to enjoy this shit! I'm opening my present!"

And because I'm feeling pretty bummed about the loss of my Christmas Eve fun, too, I haul myself up and shuffle towards his phone light in the dark. There's a rustling of paper. I can see him, illuminated only from the front, staring down at the brick-like package he's carried up here, which is slowly being divested of its outer skin.

He's peeling the wrapping back, piece by piece, removing each piece of tape with his long fingernails.

I laugh at him. "Fancy," I say.

The look he gives me is almost hurt. "I don't want to ruin the paper! We can reuse it."

The words send me back. Way back, somewhere I don't like to go. I'd actually had a foster mother, the one I'd been with the summer I jumped in front of Johnny Crocker's car like a crazy person, who'd said that. Who'd get angry if you tore the paper on the one birthday gift she'd throw you a year, some shitty thing she got at the dollar store. Waste not, she'd say, and box my ears if I did.

"Fuck that," I say out loud, and my voice comes out surprisingly rough. "I'm rich, I can do what I want. Rip that shit."

"I --" Karkat says, defensive, but then his brow furrows and he looks up at me. Whatever is going on with my face makes him squint and then sigh. And then tear the package wide open with a satisfying shredding noise. A rain of books fall around him.

He picks one up as I sit across from him, the phone, screen on, facing the ceiling between us. Karkat has got his eyebrows pulled down as he scans the cover, and then turns it over to read the back. I only need to see the cover art -- Fabio, looking like he's trying not to shit, with one nipple proudly displayed and a woman half his size clinging to his massive torso with heaving bosoms -- to start laughing.

"Oh shit," I say. "Y'all _must_ be getting on. She brought Juliet Harlowe out of storage for you? Oh _shit_!"

Karkat nods to himself after reading the back, satisfied. "It looks good," he says, picking up the next book. This time, Fabio, nipples proudly erect, is holding some redhead up over his head. I think he's spinning her around, but maybe he's playing airplane?

"Be sure to tell me how they are." I snort. "Actually, no, I thought about it and I don't want to know."

Karkat puts the book down. I swear, Fabio's heavy-lidded eyes follow me. "You are being _incredibly_ fucking aggravating about this shit," he says. "Is there something you want to share with the class, Mister Strider?"

"Juliet Harlowe," I say, indicating the cover, Fabio and all, "is Rose's alter ego. Well, alter alter ego, I guess. The one who gets to pen all of her weird and terrible sex fantasies instead of her incredibly deep and complex and philosophical wizard fanfic."

Karkat gasps. His eyes, I swear, they're _shining_ with delight. "Rose wrote these?" He gasps again. "Rose _writes_?"

"Wh -- I mean, uh, yes? Obviously? Did you miss that boat? Rose is like... the highest grossing author of the 21st century, and that's if you _ignore_ her weird books you're holding about dark, smouldering dukes and impressionable maidens." I make a face. "You really shouldn't read those. They'll do things to you. In your soul."

"Can you close your chasmal fucking mouth for two seconds while I try and parse this, Dave? Goddammit!" His face scrunches up like he's thinking. "What does she write?"

"Complacency of the Learned? You know, Harry Potter for pretentious people?"

"Shit!" Karkat's eyes pop open wide. "I've heard of those!"

"Which is to be expected, unless you actually came here from space." The weirdest fucking thought strikes me. "Shit, do you think Betty Crocker has read Complacency of the Learned? I mean, logically she has? Everyone has. Fuck, okay, that's just weird."

"I haven't. Not yet. I could never get a copy in Morocco, and..." He shoots a quick glance up at me, and then his expression shutters. Not all the way, but enough that it makes me ache a bit. I long to reach out, be all _no, little buddy, come back_. Pathetic. I focus on Karkat, not my bullshit. Karkat is peering at the covers of the Juliet Harlowe books. He strokes a finger down Fabio's heroically bared chest.

"Whoa, there," I say, holding up hands in innocent surrender. "Do I need to leave the two of you alone?"

"You are _so fucking irritating!_ " Karkat exclaims, reaching out and slapping my hands down while I laugh. He's hiding a little smile, too. It's super obvious, Mr. Vantas, come on. Teenage boys have hidden boners better than Karkat hides his smile.

This feels good. I think this is playful? Actually playful, not the fake playful I put on for people I'm trying to fuck. How long has it been since I've been playful with anyone other than Rose?

Probably since never.

"I was just _thinking_ ," Karkat says, and holds one of the covers up to my face. "I thought that Rose was... uh, you know, that she was..." He waves the book from side to side. "That Big Bad Swole here wasn't exactly her type! Because... you and her..."

I feel all my hackles fly up at once and I've got my tongue wagging in my own, dumb mouth before I can stop it. "Yeah, no, we're not talking about that."

Karkat mashes the book further into my face. "Wow! When you're finished jerking your own ego over there, maybe you can remember that I didn't actually _ask to_?"

I manage to catch myself midway through another retort. I take a deep breath. I try to avoid all the places around the core of me that are still sore and aching. It's not easy. "The way she explains it to me is that sexuality is kind of fluid."

_But not fluid enough that you'd even consider being with me._

_Dave, please,_ please _don't make it like this._

I swallow hard and shake my head. "Like, a narrative that appeals to you can be pretty different from what you actually want, kind of?"

"Hm." Karkat pulls the book out of my fucking nose, which is nice. He seems to think, then nods. "That makes sense." His fingers stroke the cover of the book. I've seen Rose hold books that way before, especially new ones, covers all glossy and edges all sharp and pages all crisp. "I can't believe Rose _writes_ ," he says. "I wonder if she could --"

He goes silent, snapping his mouth shut, and gives me a glare. It looks more like a snarl when he's lit from beneath by the phone.

"... what?" I ask.

"Nothing."

"You wonder if she could what?"

"I wonder if she could _nothing_." 

All of a sudden, this seems so fucking stupid. "God," I say. "Fuck, we really are two prickly motherfuckers, aren't we? We do _not_ want to talk about shit."

"Well," Karkat replies. " _I_ sure don't."

"Okay," I say. "Great, then. Let's just sit here in angry silence."

About fifteen seconds into the angry silence, all those things that were really easy to ignore when we were squabbling start to creep back. The utter darkness that spreads across Los Angeles regains its malicious undertone. The cell towers being down, data not working on Karkat's phone. How much battery has that thing got? Are we going to get plunged into darkness?

Why the fuck did my geni not go off?

I should probably go out there. It's down by the tennis courts. But the thought of walking that far in this sort of darkness when fuck knows what's out there is just... cringe. Full body fucking cringe, man. I don't even know what my property looks like without the light pollution from LA, not to mention all the floodlights and motion activated flourishes. Going out there without all that is basically just waltzing the fuck out into the Australian outback. Here there be drop bears.

So the geni may as well be on mars, or whatever far off planet Betty Crocker came from, and it keeps not kicking in as I tie my stomach into knots and start doing macrame with it. Power, towers, redundancies... 

Just when I'm so tense I think the air is going to snap in half, Karkat makes a frustrated growl across the way and folds his arms.

"Okay!" he erupts. "I liked talking about personal shit _way_ more than this!"

"Yeah," I say, "tell me about it."

"It's Christmas fucking Eve, I'm too wired up to just _sleep_ , this whole thing is incredibly suspicious, and at least before we pulled out the gag order, I was distracted from how fucked up this is!"

I chuckle from deep in my chest. "Hello, bro. You're speaking my language."

"Okay," Karkat says. And then, "how about we play Truth or Dare."

I blink. "Uh, what?"

"Well --" he hurries to explain. I swear I can see him flushing in the watery phone light. "Not Truth or Dare, scratch that. How about just... Truth? Because _that_ was keeping me out of my own fucking ringing skull while it was going on!"

"You do realize," I point out, "that I'm like thirty-five, right? I am so far past my Truth or Dare years, bro."

"It's not Truth or Dare!" Karkat snaps. He runs a hand through those luscious brown curls and heaves a sigh. "It's just..." His eyes flicker like he's casting around for help. "How about... how about, three questions each. And the other person has to answer honestly. And you can't back out unless there have been an equal number of questions answered."

So, this sounds dumb.

Like, super dumb. Like, fuck, this is a game for girls at slumber parties.

On the other hand...

On the other hand, Karkat is surrounded by a nest of blankets and romance novels, there's Christmas wrapping paper in tatters around us, there's no power in SoCal, and we're curled up on a couch together, so maybe this _is_ a slumber party.

And maybe this is my only shot to find out anything about this kid who's moved into my heart and maybe was... always there, somehow.

I try and sound casual. "Okay." It squeaks a bit coming out. Fuck yeah, nailed it.

Karkat looks at me. I look back at Karkat. I feel like we're playing chicken. I have questions -- boy, do I ever? -- but if I go first, I feel like I'm revealing my hand. I should wait until he's asked his. Also, what if he's just going to ask like, what's your favourite coke or something? And meanwhile I went first and was like tell me about your sordid history of streetwalking on the boardwalks of Ibiza!

I shouldn't have worried.

Karkat sucks in a breath. "What the fuck happened with you and Rose right before we met?"

It's like the question transports me. I'm back in Rose's studio apartment, watching the news on TV. Photos and video of the big red battleship over North America, and Rose with a bleeding head wound. She murmurs and then stops. Tosses and turns. I'm scared out of my fucking wits. The only thing she's said since she collapsed, seizuring, was _no hospital_ but I'm about to lose my mind because I don't know what's wrong with her.

Finally, she blinks eyes up at me. Her pupils are blown.

 _"The world's Ending,"_ she says.

I sigh. "Okay," I say, shaking my head. "Okay, bro, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this right. And by 'right' I mean 'fucking sloshed.' Come on, bring the phone for a light and follow me on a magical adventure to the wine cellar. "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Follow me on tumblr!](http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com/)


	23. Of a Pop Song People Forgot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

Karkat angles the phone while I descend the stairs into the wine cellar. They're hella steep, and my heart is in my throat the whole while. The watery light from his screen seems like a fucking pen light shone into a black hole, for all the good it does.

"Are you okay?" Karkat calls. His voice is a little bit tight. I try to bolster myself by rubbing my soul down with the concern I think I hear there. If I trip, fall, and crack my skull open on the floor, Karkat will be sad. Aw.

"I'm dope," I say, finally making it to the bottom. I turn around and flash him a thumbs up. He responds with the middle finger. Excellent. We understand each other. I turn to face the cellar proper.

This is the place I usually bring people I'm trying to fuck. When the power is actually running, it's sexy as hell. The lighting is dim and warm, the walls and ceiling are exposed brick, the floor is rough ceramic. There's an antique table with matching chairs, all cozy and shit. A small hanging chandelier. Walls upon walls of wine. And, of course, a fireplace. There's even a comfy, sexy little bedroom off to one side, just big enough to hold the necessities. When I put on one of my nicest suits, arm myself with top of the line Ray-Bans, and flip the switch on the old box labeled "charm" somewhere in my chest, this spot hums to life and becomes the fucking Bone Zone.

Now, right here, in this moment, with the lights all off and the floor freezing cold and the shadows coming from Karkat's phone light above, someone might still call it the Bone Zone. But they would probably more be referring to how it seems like a dancing skeleton might sidle out from between two shelves before stealing your skin and assuming your life than any transitive properties of sexiness.

"What do you like?" I call up. "Shit, wait. You're seventeen. You don't know anything about booze."

"I lived in fucking Spain, you astonishing goddamn bonehead. You know, the biggest wine producers on planet Earth and also where the drinking age is sixteen?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Fucking Americans!" He sighs loudly. The light from the phone wavers as I hear him take a seat on the top step. "I don't suppose you have any decent Xeres down there?"

The word is unfamiliar. "Uhh..."

He growls. "Jerez?" I still don't recognize it. He lets out an angry stream of Arabic under his breath, the first time I've heard him speak out of his other languages in weeks. It kind of surprises me. Despite his accent, it sometimes gets easy to think of him as... I don't know. One of us?

I can practically see Rose shaking her head at that bit of typically American tribalism. Well, fuck you, Rose, you're American, too.

"Palomino grapes," Karkat is saying, like he's trying to strike a match on my brain, but fuck if it's working. "Fino... oloroso... when it's sweet, it's called cream? Cream is the best one."

I blink. "Wait," I say. "Are you talking about _sherry_?"

"Yes!" Karkat exclaims, and I feel us both to take a minute to congratulate ourselves on our first real language barrier moment. Then, congratulations accomplished, I start laughing. " _What_?" he demands, and I can just imagine his sourpus expression.

"Dude. That shit is like, barely wine."

"Shut up! I like it!"

"And of _course_ you like the sweet kind. Oh my god."

"Do you have any, or not?"

"Fuck yes, I've got some. Are you kidding? English girls go crazy for that shit. Gotta keep that noise stocked so they wet their panties when they see it."

"Wow, how characteristically gross."

The words are Karkat 101, but there's a bit of something in his voice. Maybe annoyance. Maybe something else. I think maybe that was the first time I actually talked about that sort of thing with him and I clam up. Fuck. Idiot. There is way too much going on between the two of us for me to start talking about my fucking bang strats with randos.

"But uh yeah I got lots of sherry down here, sure. Tons of it, I buy wine like there's about to be a fucking wine famine hitting the earth. Every sherry you can imagine. Like, the dry shit, the sweet shit, the middle of the road shit, just like, shit all over, shit pouring out of every rack, bro, just. You know. Miles of shit. "

"Oh my god! Stop talking!"

I shut my mouth, but I'm grinning a little now because I swear, I swear I heard a little smile in his voice.

"Just -- just bring me up some cream sherry, or... or some Pedro Ximénez if you have some, and let me get drunk so I don't have to keep listening to you!"

"Can do, bro," I say. I take a deep breath to fortify myself out of any possible skeletal surprises, and get to work.

Five minutes later I'm trying not to race up the stairs. I've got five bottles of extremely nice and expensive wine in my arms, so I don't want to drop shit, but despite trying to make a joke out of it in my head, it is _legitimately_ fucking creepy down there, holy god, and I'm glad when Karkat moves out of the way and I waddle over to the kitchen table and set the bottles down as gently as I can. I'm breathing a little hard.

"Are you okay?" Karkat asks again. I'm not sure I'll ever get tired of hearing that question from him. It makes my heart feel full.

"I'm cool," I say. I straighten and head over to the cupboard to grab some cups. "Just, uh. It's cold, dark, and kind of spooky down there."

I'm expecting him to tease me, or fuck with me, and I'm ready for it. Mental dukes up. Let's go, punkass. But when I turn back with the glasses held by the stems in one hand, he just nods and gives me a sympathetic look. " _Everything_ is kind of spooky at the moment," he agrees. "That's the point of this bullshit."

Fair enough. I put the cups down, open a bottle of Pedro Ximénez sherry for him and a dark, rich Sangiovese for me, and pour. His smells like liquid fruitcake. Damn. But. But it makes me happy, like, heart-swellingly kind of happy, when he takes a drink and immediately starts practically glowing. 

"Wow," he says, looking at the glass. "Wow. Wow, that's really good. That's so much nicer than any I've had." He shoots me a little look. It's hard to tell with the phone light, but I think he's blushing a little. "I guess that explains what the English girls are so fucking juiced up over."

The words evaporate what remains of the tension from my little gaffe, and it lets me laugh a little, take a long swig of my wine, and say: "We fucked."

Karkat's eyebrows pull down and his teeth gleam in the phone light as he grimaces. "Okay, wow, that's fucking --"

I'm shaking my head. "Not -- fuck, sorry, no, not the English girls. I mean --" _I mean, we did,_ I want to say, and then wiggle my eyebrows, but it's tacky, and so I just don't. I start talking again before I can start getting impressed with my own self control. Or over examining why that whole topic feels so out of line between us, considering. "I mean, that's what happened with Rose and me. That's why shit is fucked up."

"... oh," Karkat says, very quietly, which is a miracle for him. And then: "well, shit."

My brain is trying to untether to spool back to that night. I follow the thread, unable to resist its pull. Rose quietly explaining what she had seen. Me, the idiot, trying to ask her how we fix it. How we stop it. Her, gently showing me that we can't, until I finally understand it, finally understand that humanity is doomed, the earth is doomed, _we are doomed._

And then I reach for her, and the me sitting in my kitchen pouring another glass of wine on Christmas Eve yanks the spool back and reels the memory in.

I won't let myself relive it. I won't, I can't. Because if I let myself sink into it, tap into how it felt when she clung to me and I was deep inside of her and she whispered my name over and over into my ear --

If I let myself do what I'm doing right now, I'll _enjoy_ it.

And that would be worse than anything, to long for that night, to happily relive the experience that might have destroyed me and Rose forever.

"It wasn't about sex," I say. It comes out toneless, and I'm saying it as much for myself as for Karkat. "It wasn't about her wanting me, or suddenly being into guys, or even about pleasure. Rose just... Rose just had this moment where she did what I've been doing for fifteen fucking years. She felt alone and miserable and like she was the only person in the world and she just... reached out. To feel something. To feel... connected."

Karkat isn't saying anything. Honestly, I wish he would. I down the entire drink in one long swig, and even wine as nice and smooth and fresh as this goes down hard all at once like that. I pour another glass. Karkat still isn't saying anything and I can't stand the silence.

"The thing is, I knew it. I understood it. I -- she was on the edge of something and I knew she was, and I just... I let it happen. No, I _wanted_ it to happen. I thought... she'll see, once she feels me. Once she knows how good it can be. This might be the worst day of either of our lives, but this is gonna be where it turns around, because _she's going to understand how much I love her._ "

My voice catches. I seek Karkat's eyes. They gleam in the light. We stare at each other. I clear my throat.

"So, how much battery has that thing got left?"

Karkat blinks. He opens his mouth. I think he wants to say something, like... yo dude, sorry about that heavy-ass shit you just told me. But he closes it again and picks up the phone. It lights up his face. I love his face. I feel something stir inside of me, something that wants to uncoil and stretch and then just take me over, and I smother it. This has gone far enough.

"About half," Karkat says.

"Cool," I say.

He puts the phone back down between us while I drain my glass, and then I hunch my shoulders and shrug. "I mean," I say. "I mean, the end of this story is pretty obvious, but you know. All that shit I just said was obviously stupid. She wasn't suddenly not gay. She wasn't having an epiphany. She was having a fucking breakdown. And so after it was done, and I fucking _realized_ what I'd just... fuck." I shake my head. "Think that's about all I got in me for this tale, dude."

"Okay," Karkat agrees. His voice is still really soft.

I laugh and it comes out bitter. I want to start feeling drunk, honestly, but years of hilariously rampant substance abuse have built me up quite a tolerance. "Was it all you hoped for?"

I can't look at him, but his voice is sharp. "Don't do that. We both agreed to this! And yes, if you want to know, that actually -- made a lot of things make fucking sense! So yes, I'm glad I asked! I'm glad I know! Is that okay?"

I burn with shame. I look up and nod. "Honestly? Yeah. Yeah, it's fine." I take a deep breath. "It... actually feels kind of okay to have some of it out there."

"You don't have to lie."

"I'm not lying. That shit weighs real fuckin' heavy dude, and Rose and I... we don't talk about it, even though it's fucking hanging over everything now. Fucking everything." I drag a hand across my face. "So I'm not just telling you some cliché bullshit when I say that it _is_ eating me up inside." I'm not sure if it's stopped eating, or that giving voice to it really has made it better, but...

But enough is enough. I've got myself wrapped around it like it's my secret treasure, the pain of that fucking night. Time to stand up and let it air out. Or whatever. Maybe the wine is working a bit because I'm mixing metaphors in my head.

"How long do you think half a battery is going to last?" I ask.

Karkat makes a face. "Considering the sun had _just_ set when the lights went out," he says, " _definitely_ not until morning."

I want to ask _do you really think it'll last until morning?_ But I don't, because I think we both know that it will. That whatever has shut down cell towers, redundancies, and my own personal geni isn't something that the power guys are just gonna patch up and get back running again. So, like. Merry fucking Christmas, Los Angeles, I guess.

"I don't really want to sleep in the room," I say. I'm hyper-aware of the question I get to ask, now, but I'm not sure how to approach it. I feel like it's a rabbit on the lawn between us and I'm going to need to corner it all casual-like so it doesn't scamper off. "Maybe we can just bed down on the couches in the viewing room?"

"What the fuck is wrong with the room?" Karkat furrows his brow. I notice that we never call it "our room" despite the fact that we both sleep in there. What's with that?

"It just..." I shake my head. "It just seems like the sort of place where it could be really easy to get cornered."

Karkat's head shoots up and he shoots me a weird look in the dark. I can't read it. I wish I could. I can't help that think that, maybe, with more light... "Who would...?" he asks, guarded, and I shake my head.

"I don't fucking know," I say. "I didn't say it was _logical_ , dude."

He nods but doesn't say anything else. He drinks his cake and I go to pour myself another drink but find the bottle empty. So I should definitely start feeling drunky soon, fucking _hurray_. I need this shit. I take my time twisting the corkscrew in the second bottle. Carefully pouring my drink. Taking that first sip. I'm incredibly aware of Karkat's eyes on me as I do all of this shit, boring a hole into me, and so I'm not _really_ surprised when he slams his hands down on the kitchen table. The bottles ring, the wine sloshes, the bowl of fake fruit rocks, and Karkat performs the legendary Glare of One Thousand Daggers.

"If you're going to ask, then ask!" he snaps.

So much for the delicate little bunny rabbit.

I set my drink down and sigh. "Okay, okay," I say. I take a deep breath. "Why were you hooking?"

He snorts. "Because it pays well."

We kind of stare at one another over the table, me expectant and him shuttered, until I let myself get a little bit crabby and tilt my head at him. "Oh, come on, asshole," I say. "Tit for tat here, motherfucker. I showed you mine in all its bulbous, hairy, pulsating glory. You'd better throw some meat on that shitty little bone you just threw me or I'm complaining to the Better Business Bureau."

"Ugh," Karkat says. He rolls his eyes. "I -- what else is there? That's why!"

"You _know_ it's a more complicated question than that!" I shoot back. "Or how would you have felt if I just said 'oh Rose and me? We had a lil tiff.'"

He growls something under his breath, but then he settles back in his chair, drink in hand, and I know that hit a mark, if nothing else. He's in shadow back there, further from the phone, but I think he's going to talk.

So I wait, and he doesn't leave me hanging.

"Do you..." He kind of shakes his head and furrows his brow and lapses back into thought for a second, and I let him. "Do you ever get this, like, this feeling, this feeling that comes from somewhere in your fucking _bone marrow_ , that you should be somewhere or do something or... or that something just isn't _right_ , and you need to course correct it, you get this feeling like you need to do something _specific_ to fix it, or..." He looks up at me, and despite the lighting, I think I see a gleam of something in his eyes. Like... like he's calling into a canyon, and is desperate to hear an echo, because if he doesn't, it's going to be like he's the only person in the world.

"Not really," I say weakly.

"Oh..." he says, and he looks away.

And I hate disappointing him so much that I can't help myself. I burst through the wall like the fucking Kool-Aid man, breaking the cardinal rule Rose and I decided on over twenty fucking years ago.

"Rose, though? I mean, I don't want to make this sound weird, but like..." How to explain in a way that doesn't make me sound like I'm crazy? "Like, this one time, she got me to jump in front of a car, this hella black sedan, so that I could give a message to a celebrity who died before you were born."

Okay, probably the wrong story to choose from.

"What the _fuck_?"

"Right, I know. I just... you asked, so there it is. Sometimes Rose just knows stuff. I mean... a _lot_ of times, honestly. She gets these flashes of insight, and she obeys them, and they usually end up being right. Is it like that for you?"

" _No_ ," Karkat says firmly. He still looks a bit miffed, but... less so, and I see him furrowing his brow and trying to take it all in. He drinks his sherry. God, that shit is so sweet. How does he stand it? What a terrible excuse for a wine. I'm thinking about this instead of about how Rose is going to _fucking kill me._

"No," Karkat says again, but a bit more reasoned, this time. He looks into his glass, like there's some arcane answer in that viscous shit. "For me it was always just... just the one thing. That when I was old enough, I should go to the United States."

Oh. "To live the American Dream?"

"No," Karkat says flatly, clearly unimpressed at my hopeful tone. "Fuck the American Dream. Morocco was fine. Spain was better! I wasn't looking for a better life, or anything!"

"Then why..."

He leans forward, looking frustrated. "I don't know!" he says, and I think he's just as confused as I am. "I've _never_ known. Sometimes, if I close my eyes and zone out, or... or maybe when I'm just waking up from a nap, I think I can hear something. A woman's voice. Telling me there's a home for me there. Here. I... I don't know."

He's definitely blushing now.

"Hey," I say, softly. He looks up and I give him a crooked smile. "Look, bro. It's cool, okay? There's... a lot of weird shit in my life, if it makes you feel better. Uh. Like. My name isn't actually Dave. It's Michael. But I always hated that shit. It never felt right, fucking never, so I just kind of... picked up something that _did_."

His eyes kind of light up and change a bit at that, and he finally smiles a little bit and nods happily. "So you don't think I'm a delusional fucking psycho."

"Fuck no. Life is weird, man. Trust me. That name shit? Tip of my iceberg. Life is really, really fucking weird."

He lets out a breath that I realize he's been holding this whole time. And, miraculously, having explained what he clearly thinks is the weirdest part, all the rest seems to flow effortlessly, like we'd lanced a wound. Gross. "I never knew my family, but I have a benefactor. I never found out who it was. Thanks to their money, I grew up in a really nice orphanage. We had nice things. We got movies from America. They taught us English." He looks proud. "They always said I was the best fucking study they ever had. Take that. I'm good at shit."

I grin. I think about Rose and about the placement of fucks. "I've always been impressed."

"You should be, I'm fucking impressive. Um. Anyway. The thing is, the money stopped coming around 2004, when I was ten. They kept me for a bit longer. I think they were waiting to see if it came back. But then it didn't. So..."

He shrugs.

I want to hold him.

"Some of the older kids had become runaways. They felt bad for me and let me stay with them. They were never friends, but we took care of one another. My English was good enough that I could bring home US Dollars for them from tourists. Translating. I never fucking freeloaded." He looks at me fiercely, as if waiting for me to argue with him about that. He is severely overestimating how much I care about this sort of thing. I mean. I used to make long distance calls from my neighbours’ phones because I was cheap as shit.

When I don't jump to smear his honour, or whatever, Karkat continues. "They talked about Spain a lot. And other things. It's really easy to get to Spain from Morocco. Then you can hitchhike to Barcelona, and a boat or plane to Ibiza is easy. And in Ibiza, you can make a whole lot of money."

"Hooking," I say. I try not to sound like I'm pitying him, but I think it comes out anyway, because his eyes flash.

"What?" he demands.

"How old were you when you started?" I can't help but ask.

"Not ten, if that's what you're thinking!"

I hold up my hands. I think I'm a _little_ drunk, because I bump the empty bottle and it tumbles off the table and hits the floor. It doesn't break. Thank god for classy bottles being so goddamn thick. "I didn't say shit."

Karkat runs a hand through his mass of jet black curls. He purses his thick lips. "I was fifteen," he says, and just as my heart starts aching for him, he sneers at me. "This sure is fucking _spicy_ coming from a guy who picked me up!"

Oh, _ouch._

But... fair.

"I think I've just been served," I say mildly.

Karkat flashes his teeth in not-quite-a-smile. "What's the worst job you've _ever_ had?" he asks.

It seems out of nowhere. "Uh," I say. I remember my first job ever, when I had just turned thirteen, and I was trying to save up every penny to go visit Rose up in New England, an entire world away. I wince. "Busing tables at this fucking disgusting truck stop," I say. "Half chewed food everywhere that I had to deal with, which wasn't half as bad as the spittoons at the tables. Buckets of rancid spit are really my lifelong passion, but those guys had terrible aim and even I couldn't clown with that shit. Oh, and not to mention getting bathroom duty at least half my shifts. You do not want to hear my treatise about trucker shits. It is long and horrifying and will make your very soul turn inside out."

"That is... so much worse than I expected!" Karkat exclaims. He actually looks a little impressed. "Fuck!"

"Also, this was in the 80s, so I was making like three dollars an hour."

"Oh my god."

"Yeah, pretty fucking horrifying."

Karkat shakes his head. "Okay," he says. " _Now_ do you see why I think it's a little dumb that you're pitying me for sucking the dicks of absolutely _ludicrously_ wealthy tourists for a hundred dollars an hour."

I know that, intellectually, I should be focusing on his argument. Either _wow I'd never thought of it that way before_ or _yeah but you were fifteen and they were pervs_. But instead, my attention zeroes in with laser precision on the phrase _sucking dicks_.

Six seconds ago, this dialogue had been wonderfully theoretical. Now, in the terrible present with all of its horrors, it is _painfully_ real. My brain has set up two screens and is playing two scenarios at the same time. In one, Karkat is kissing down my chest, those full lips soft on my body, his eyes focused on mine, headed for my straining cock. And in the other, he's kneeling before some stranger in that fucking hotel he'd taken me to.

It's like a ten car pileup in my brain, my heart, my stomach, and my crotch. Tears are screeching, fires are raging, there are sirens going, and my actual face is just sitting there slack-jawed while the authorities helicopter in to see if anything can be salvaged.

"They took advantage of you!" I hear myself saying, sick with jealousy and frustration and this completely misplaced desire to protect this kid, because yeah it's fucked up that he was so young but --

"Wow! That's _really_ rich, coming from you!" Karkat snaps back, and yeah, that. That's why I'm human garbage.

Some defensive terrible part of me wants to say _I didn't do anything to you._ But that's not even true. Yeah, we didn't get down to business, but I'd held him close, I'd kissed him, I'd felt up that fine ass and imagined all the things I wanted to do to it.

I lurch to my feet and a wave of hard light-headedness washes over me. Damn, okay. I'm a whole lot drunker than I thought I was. I sway on my feet, and then Karkat is there, at my side, helping me stand. I wrap an arm around his shoulders. A few hours ago, he had cuddled up against my side while we watched Love, Actually. Had I ruined all of that by playing this stupid fucking game?

"I don't want anyone to hurt you," I hear myself say. Put a fucking cork in it Strider, god. " _I_ never wanted to hurt you." Why can't I stop? "You deserve good things, Karkat. You deserve happy things. You deserve friends and... and..." I hate myself, because I'm still playing those simulations. He's a kid. He's a fucking kid. "You deserve a lot better than me."

"Please stop," Karkat is saying, and I shake my head, because I don't know if I can, but magically, no more words come out.

He steers me back towards the foyer. We pass through the massive dining room, and he's holding up the hand that isn't holding me to illuminate this shit. The shadows thrown by the chairs are hella creepy. I look down at him, at the way his jaw is set, and it makes a lump creep up my throat. Fuck, this is why I prefer _drugs_. Alcohol is so fucking depressing.

He sits me on the bottom stair in the foyer. It gets very dark while he fucks around under the Christmas tree in the dark. I think with a pang that maybe I just ruined Christmas. He was so excited about Christmas.

"Karkat," I say, trying to make this shit right. "I don't... you aren't a sob story to me, you're not some third world tragedy that followed me home, it's not like that. It's not like that at all. You're so much more than that. Sometimes I feel like I've known you my whole life. I care about you, Karkat, I do, it's not... I'm not..."

He straightens and turns around. There's a package in his hand and I recognize it as one of the ones that had been there _before_ Rose's atomic bomb of gifts had arrived. One of the ones that had been under a tree for a week, wrapped up with paper Karkat had picked out himself at the Wal Mart, which I'd been trying to avoid thinking about or looking at for fear my heart might explode.

I swallow hard. "I'm being so uncool right now," I say.

"Yeah. Like, fucking insanely so. But that's okay. You're always uncool." Karkat gives me a small smile.

His smile makes my heart flutter. Fuck. I smile back.

He balances the phone on top of the present and walks behind me while I climb the stairs. The light shines up at the ceiling like a kid's nightlight. "You know," he says behind me. "I still have two more questions."

"Shit," I say, shaking my head. "Shit, no way. No more questions. This was a terrible idea. Our lives are way too shitty for questions."

"Fuck you," he says cheerily. "I at least get to _ask_ one before you back out."

Do these stairs go on forever, or what? I think about that Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff gag. It really would be a great gag, if I weren't done with movies for good.

"What's your favourite colour?" Karkat asks.

Pure relief courses through me. My heart does a Grinchlike swelling. And I laugh out loud.

A few minutes later, we're back on the couch. I've learned that Karkat likes dogs and thinks Hitch is the best romcom he's ever seen and that it's a shame Will Smith's career in that genre never really took off, because he makes a way better romantic lead than an action star. And Karkat is now armed with the knowledge that red is my favourite colour and that I can sing the entire old school jingle for Popomatic Trouble, which is my favourite board game because you used to be able to get old broken versions from yard sales everywhere. _You've got trouble, wait don't run, this kind of Trouble is tons of fun! Popomatic pops the dice, pop a six and you move twice!_ I recite for him, and he makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a gigglesnort.

"I think," he says, sitting down, "that you probably shouldn't drink. Because this is the worst I've seen you in a long while."

"Probably," I agree. Honestly, I really do feel like shit. I hadn't expected that. Maybe I should have. Alcohol has never been my best drug.

His fingers run over the square lines of the box. I watch them. I've tried not to think about what might be in there. Probably something Rose told him to buy. Probably something dumb. Probably a joke.

"I --" he says suddenly, and then stops abruptly.

I wait for him to continue. He doesn't.

"You what?" I ask finally.

He shakes his head, but I don't think he means it as a negative. "I... I don't think of you like one of them," he says. "One of the johns," he clarifies, before I can ask.

Oh.

"I sat in the hotel room for a minute after you left that night," Karkat says. His fingers are still running over the wrapping paper. "I was pretty sure you were going to go kill yourself. I kept telling myself that it didn't matter. You gave me a lot of cash. I could get to America with that money. And what did it matter that another weird, lonely pervert who likes them young would die." He walks his fingers across the box. He won't meet my eyes. I'm holding my breath. I feel elated and sick at the same time.

He takes a deep breath. He finally looks up at me.

It's like the earth moves.

"I couldn't do it. I couldn't just let you. Because there was something about you, Dave. I couldn't explain it. I _can't_ explain it. I just knew that you'd be haunting me forever. So I followed you and I saved your life."

I want to hear more. I want to hear the last two months from his perspective. I want to know if he listens to my breathing at night. I want to know if he feels this tether between us. I want to know if he ever says something or hears something and it's suddenly deja vu so hard the world doesn't seem real.

But he just pushes the box over to me.

I pull back the paper. My heart's thumping in my mouth. I'm feeling so many things and I can't handle any of them.

It's a tiny little handheld digital video camera.

"Make something good, okay?" Karkat says. He sounds flippant, and all I can think is _I can't, don't you people fucking get it, I can't make anything good because I am bad, there is nothing good in me, I'm a fraud and I can't._ But when I look up to say all of that, Karkat meets my eyes and winces and says, quietly, "at least make something _real_?"

And I nod.

He's nice enough not to notice that there might be a drop or two of moisture on the box as he picks it up and sets it aside. I think I should go down to the Christmas tree and fish out the Blu-Ray special edition version of Mean Girls I got him, signed by all of the Girls and Tina Fey herself, but compared to what he did for me, it just seems like terrible showy bullshit with no heart behind it. I wipe my eyes while Karkat sets the box on the floor and wads up the wrapping paper. He stacks the Juliet Harlowe books carefully. He turns off the light from the phone, plunging the room into total, eerie darkness.

For a second, I'm afraid all over again. I think of the geni. I think of the cell towers. I think of those nocturnal eyes glowing in the foyer by the Christmas tree. And I think of how bruised our relationship feels after that perhaps ill considered Q&A.

And then I'm not afraid, and not thinking, because Karkat curls against me in the dark and pulls his nest of blankets up around us and I realize with crystal fucking clarity that, soulmate connection or past life bullshit or imprinting or whatever this is, even if it's maybe just my own stupid brain blowing a bit of kindness in a moment of darkness out of proportion, I'm really actually completely in love with a seventeen year old hooker.

So yeah. Karkat, and Rose. My tally of people I've fallen for is just basically full of the two most inappropriate people I've ever met.

That's nice.

Karkat snuggles closer into me. I close my eyes. It doesn't make any difference to the level of darkness... but it does make it very easy to take his warmth and proximity as something I've earned, rather than an act of pity like I know it is, and slip off into sleep.

I'm awakened from a dream about grey text and a field of a thousand stars very abruptly. I'm too warm, and very cramped, and sound is happening. Loud, loud sound. I groan, twist my head, try to squirm away from the weight on me. There's a voice talking, loudly. A female voice, authoritative and familiar and _she's here_

I snap awake, jerking up. Karkat moans and rattles off an angry string of Arabic and I shake him hard, panicked, because _the Empress is on our TV._

She's up close and personal, her face filling the screen. I can see some sort of alien freckles across her powdered cheeks, this close. She's grinning and peering into the room. My heart is thundering in my ears.

It's still pitch black, except for her.

She laughs.

"Ho ho ho! Good morning and Merry Christmas!" She fluffs her hair and winks. Her anglerfish teeth are bared. They turn my stomach. My entire body is too hot. Karkat hisses beside me. "Did you sleep well? You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

She's talking to us. She's looking right at me, making fucking eye contact. She's talking to us. I'm going to fucking piss myself.

But she isn't.

"It's five in the morning, Los Angeles!" she crows, exulting. "Christmastime is here! And Betty is all up on top of things, as usual." She taps the side of her nose. Her long, clawlike fingernails are painted like little santas. It's fucked up. It's utterly fucked up. "Last night, LA got a hot blast of solar wind that penetrated your weakass ozone. Y'all got hit with a full scale EMP! My ship tracked it, and, luckily, I _think_ my ship can help." She smiles wider. Those teeth.

"Fuck," Karkat whispers beside me. "Fuck. She did it. She _did it_."

"I'm already thinking about how to get this fine tech out to the people of Earth. It can't be much harder than handling a baking empire, can it? But for now... Betty saves your Christmas, my minnows!"

She snaps a finger in front of the screen.

The lights spring to life and _I'm That Type of Guy_ by LL Cool J starts playing through the speakers while the Empress laughs delightedly. The light is blinding. I throw up my arm. Karkat whimpers.

His phone rings.

He puts it up against his ear. I hold my breath. Somehow, I think it's her. The Empress. She's calling here, she's coming for us, somehow she knows it's me, she wants to stop us from winning the game at any cost. (What game? What the fuck?)

Slowly, Karkat nods. He swallows. He lowers the phone.

"It's Rose," he says. "She says... she says that it's starting."

I remember, all at once, that the song that's playing while the Empress bobs her head along was my favourite when I was fourteen. There's no way that can be a coincidence. There's no fucking way.

I swallow. I clench my teeth. 

"Tell her that I know," I say. And then, more firmly. "Tell her that I don't fucking care. I'm not going to be baited out. We fight when _I'm_ ready, Crocker. And today it's fucking Christmas."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Follow me on tumblr!](http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com/)


	24. Interlude 7: December, 1996 // Do you believe in past lives?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

The air was cool and brisk as Rose threw her purse down on a table in the square outside the movie theatre. She wrapped her big plaid scarf tighter around her neck as she fell into the chair.

"I liked it," she said. "It was savvy."

Dave settled across from her. He still wasn't sure what he thought of it, himself. It was too smart to be pretentious, but too dumb to be actually good. He wasn't sure what he thought of anything that fell into that uncanny valley of quality. "It was pretty good," he said, rather than something else, something more insightful, because he didn't want to get into it with Rose.

She gave him a look. It was a look that pretty much said "I know exactly what you're thinking, and you're about to get it, sir." "What did you think of the scene where they all frankly discussed horror tropes? It was clever, wasn't it? Almost comedic, and yet set in the context of such an actually frightening horror movie."

Dave leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. He couldn't help the little smile that played at his lips. "Yeah," he agreed, answering her unspoken question rather than the actual words she wrapped them up in. "I dug that scene. It was cool."

"The kind of thing you might film?"

"I don't know," he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

He needed a haircut; he was shaggy. He couldn't help but look at Rose, at her perfectly arranged blonde hair that was cut cute, pixie-style, around her ears these days. At her black patterned choker, at her form-fitting purple shirt, at her stylish overalls and the plaid flannel tied around her waist and at her chunky black boots. Rose Lalonde was three years into her English Lit degree and she looked like the kind of person who had her shit together. Dave was minus four years into anything resembling adult life and generally looked like a kid who'd bought all his clothes from goodwill except his way-too-expensive Ray-Bans, which he was wearing because he erroneously thought they made him look cool. It was hard _not_ to think of what people walking by might think when they saw them together.

She sighed. "You're still recording things, though? On the camcorder I gave you?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. You know. Nothing special, just... just stuff." Time lapses of clouds moving overhead, of leaves budding in the spring, the passage of the moon across the sky from sunset to sunrise, moments of change and of evolution. His now many partners lying, fucked silly, in his bed, tits hanging out and hair in disarray, their muzzy smiles and the simple longing in the way they reached for him. People in Wal-Mart parking lots, the vast rainbow of humanity that was barfed from their cars and onto the asphalt, who eventually yoyoed back around and drove away. The beautiful sort of compulsion he found in reality, in just normal things.

When he played the footage back, he always wanted to be sick. Lifeless bullshit. Meaningless drivel. Framed wrong, shot wrong, cut wrong. Everything about it, fucking wrong.

"You never show me anything," Rose wheedled, smiling sideways at him.

He shrugged a shoulder, trying not to let himself be reeled in by that smile. "Nothing really worth showing yet," he said, exaggerating his accent to make himself seem harmless, stupid, lazy.

She gave him that flat, knowing look he _always_ got when she was wise to one of his ploys, and she shook her head and began digging through her purse.

"Are you sure that you're going to be okay down here without me for Christmas?" she asked. She'd switched to the tone she took when she was managing him. He knew he should probably hate that -- being managed. It mostly just made him feel loved.

"Dude, I'm fine. Haven't I said I'm fine? I'm right as rain. Safe as houses."

"Hardly a very comforting reassurance, considering the dump you're currently residing in." Rose sniffed. "I half expect the roof to fall in on your head before the New Year begins."

"Shit," he said, leaning forward eagerly. "If it does, do you think I can sue them?"

She pulled out a stick of dark purple lipstick, met his eyes, and gave him a glare that could either melt ice or freeze lava, depending on which had pissed her off more. "You need to find ambition, Dave," she said firmly. She puckered her lips and began applying the dark lipstick. He watched her lips, imagined pulling her close, imagined her wide hips under his hands, imagined smearing that lipstick all over her face, and turned his face away, flushed and embarrassed.

Get over it, he told himself, as he'd taken to doing sixty times a fucking day for years, now.

"I'd stay if I could," Rose said. Her lips twisted. She glanced away from him, a shadow passing over her eyes. "God, would I _ever_ stay if I could. But my... _father_ , if you would call him such a thing, really does insist I'm home for the holiday, this year, or else there might be suspension of my financial support."

Dave tried not to hate the resentment and the bitterness and the barely restrained words that dripped off her every word. He tried not to think about her big room, her old Apple computer, her velvet posters coloured in every colour. He tried not to think about how much someone would have had to have loved her to have chosen her, to have kept her, to have made her part of their family even though she was already fourteen by the time they met her.

But he couldn't help himself, thinking about being alone, being irrelevant, being someone who no one wanted to spend the most important day of the year with enough to make it happen. For years, he hadn't said a word, but suddenly, it all bubbled up like an angry fountain. "You know," he said, before he could stop himself, "there are worse things than having a place to go home for Christmas."

She snapped her eyes to his. That shadow came back tenfold, and Dave had just a second to realize that she looked as if he'd slapped her in the face before her voice cut him like the snap of the wrist. "And there are worse things," she snapped, "than not having to owe anything to anyone. Some homes aren't worth going back to."

He clenched his fists under the table. Really? he wanted to retort. Wow, really? The girl who got a home, who got a family, who got a place, she's going to act like I'm the lucky one, somehow? But he didn't say it. He didn't say anything.

Not until a chair scraped across the cement ground of the square, and someone new sat down at their table.

Dave looked up. Rose was already fixed on their visitor with rapt attention.

Something skipped, flipped, spun around backwards, and the world seemed suspended for just a moment before it snapped back into place and she was just an old woman.

She was tall, almost as tall as the average guy. She wore her long silver hair down her back in a loose braid. Her skin was dark and lined and a pair of neon green eyes peered owlishly out from behind round-rimmed glasses. She didn't have any makeup on at all. But she was dressed in a nice, business casual, Hillary Clinton sort of blazer and long skirt, and she settled a brown leather briefcase onto the table between the three of them.

Her smile was like something out of a half-remembered dream.

"Hello," she said.

"Hey," Dave replied, automatically. "Sup?"

Rose kicked him under the table.

The old woman laughed. It was a warm, rich, honey-soaked kind of laugh that made his toes feel warm. "Not much at all, Dave," she said, with great fondness in her voice.

Rose sat up straighter. She narrowed her eyes and peered at the old woman. She licked her dark purple lips before seeming to make a decision. She squared her shoulders. "That's not his real name," she said.

"Isn't it?" the old woman asked.

"Kind of no," Dave said. The words were a little rough in his throat. Kind of yes, too.

"It feels like his real name, doesn't it, Rose?" the old woman asked.

Rose stood up abruptly. "What is this?" she asked sharply. "What's happening, right now? Did Brian send you? Is he watching me, now? Tell him that I'm coming home, like he wants, but if he wants to send someone after me like I'm a disobedient _pet_ , then he can --"

"I'm here on my own accord," the old woman said. She produced a business card from inside her breast pocket. She extended it to Rose. Rose looked down at it like it might bite her, eyebrows pulled down tight. Then, slowly, moving as if she were facing down a rabid dog, she took the card from between the old woman's fingers and brought it to her face.

"Jade English," she read. "CEO of Skaianet."

The name tickled something at the back of Dave's head. Not _her_ name, but the company. Skaia-net. Something about it was just so damned...

Rose swallowed. She went to brush back her hair, something she'd done since he'd met her under their tree when she was just six years old whenever she wanted to seem smart, in control, and unconcerned. She flushed and clenched her jaw when she realized that her hair didn't currently have the length for that tried and true maneuver. "Am I supposed to recognize this?"

"Maybe," Jade English said with a small smile. " _Do_ you?"

Rose studied the card. "The logo, maybe," she said. She peered at it and then shook herself. "I must have seen it on some of your products. What sort of company is this, Mrs. English?"

"Ms. English, please. And we're a technology, robotics, and R&D organization with a focus on developing new and exciting ways to do things."

"Let me see the card," Dave said. He felt like someone was tugging at a loose string in his head, only it wasn't nearly as loose as it looked and it was just yanking at his brain funny.

Jade produced another for him. He looked it over. It had an address (it was in Honolulu, which made sense, she kinda looked Hawaiian), and a phone number, and up in the corner, the shape of a screen skull with an SN where the forehead would be. Dave frowned. The skull was outlined in rainbow colours, and they actually... well, they kind of strobed. There. On the paper. He turned the card from side to side, ran his fingers over the paper. It must be some sort of illusion.

That must be why looking at the logo made every vertebrae tingle.

"Is this a sales pitch?" Rose asked, trying to sound bored and unimpressed. "An investment opportunity? As you might have noticed from our clothes and faces, we are what you might refer to as 'the youth.' Hardly in possession of much in the way of funds."

"I'm not looking for money," Jade said. Something sparkled in her eye, and Dave honestly couldn't tell if it was mischief or delight or maybe even unshed tears. "Tell me. Do either of you believe in past lives?"

"No," Dave said, at the exact moment that Rose said: "Yes."

He raised an eyebrow at her. She raised one right back at him.

"Oh, come on," he said. "I knew you were all into tarot and horoscopes for like a week in the 80s but aren't you supposed to be all educated and rational, now?"

"You might recall that I do still occasionally have premonitions of the future?"

Dave shot a glance at the old woman. She didn't seem especially impressed _or_ perturbed by that statement.

"Well, sure, yeah, but..." Dave stammered.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Rose replied primly.

"What the fuck?"

"Shakespeare, Dave. Please, at least _try_ to make us look civilized."

Jade threw back her head and laughed delightedly. There was something wonderfully nostalgic about her laugh. In some ways, it reminded Dave of the carefree sort of mirth he'd see in old movies, but he didn't think that was it. There was something more, something... heartsore about it.

Maybe he was remembering it from a past life.

"I want to make sure you both know that I'm a scientist," Jade said. She hid her smile with a hand, but not very well. "A world-renowned physicist, if you'd believe it. So when I say what I'm about to say, please, do just accept that it's coming from a sincere place, and I'm not making fun of either of you or trying to imply something, or..."

"Of course," Rose said. Dave didn't know _what_ to say, for his part.

Jade nodded. "Have either of you ever had the sense that you were living the wrong life? Have you ever experienced out of body sensations? Do you feel that you experience deja vu more often than the average person? Have you ever remembered something that seemed impossible, or seen aliens walking among us?"

Uh.

What?

Rose blinked at her.

Dave cleared his throat.

"World renowned physicist?" Rose repeated, slowly.

Jade sighed, and then smiled. Both seemed incredibly sad. Dave felt a stab of guilt, but -- but at the same time, really? _Really_? This was crazy. This was total bullshit. Who _was_ this broad, who called them by the names they'd chosen for themselves, seemed oddly familiar, and then asked them about... aliens among them and shit?

_Maybe,_ something whispered, _you're remembering her from a past life after all._

No fucking way.

"I'm on the mainland this month gathering some... packages," Jade said quietly. She looked down at her hands. "I was given to believe, based on my calculations, that three of them would be arriving. Sadly, it seemed that only one made it on time. The other two seem to be..." She shook her head. "Lost in the mail."

She seemed to await some response.

"Okay?" Dave said, helplessly.

Jade shook her head. She stood up, bringing her briefcase with her. "It really was too much to hope that all the pieces would be together," she said. "You're young. I remember being your age. And I can't help but think that despite it all, things were easier for me."

"In what ways?" Rose asked. She seemed genuinely interested. Or maybe she was just humouring a potentially dangerous crazy woman who thought she owned a Fortune 500 company Dave had never heard of.

Because she had to be crazy.

Right?

"In a _world_ of ways," Jade said with a sigh. She flipped her braid. "That number will reach my office. Call anytime, anywhere. Tell them you're looking for Miss Harley. That will get you through to me in a jiff, children."

"You're incredibly weird," Dave blurted. He felt like he'd just gotten off the merry-go-round, like someone had pushed it way, way too fucking fast and now his brains were doing backflips and he was about to lose all his popcorn from Scream on the pavement. It felt like everything inside of him was pounding in unison, screaming over and over, that _something wasn't right._

"Be nice, Dave," Rose commanded. He snapped his mouth shut and looked down at the card.

"I foresee I'll be quite busy with... well, with one of those packages I told you about. But rest assured. I'll be here in two shakes of a lamb's tail if either of you dials that number. I swear it. Keep safe. And stay away from Hamburger Helper and Fruit Roll-ups."

With that, she walked away. Within moments, she was lost to the Houston Christmas crowd.

Dave looked at the card. The rainbows dancing around the familiar green skull. The number.

"What a strange woman," Rose said, sounding as if she was very far away.

"... yeah," Dave said. He pushed out his chair and stood up. He needed to clear his head. He needed to get back on the ground. He needed to find someone who would see his smile and his body and his face and want to touch him, because he thought that might be the only thing that would make the world feel like a real place where people lived again, instead of some topsy turvy carnival where 80 year old broads you'd never seen before make you feel like an entire chunk of you is just fucking _missing._

"I wonder..." Rose began.

Dave shook his head, shoved his hands and the business card into his pocket, and stalked off. "I don't," he said, shaking himself. "Come on. Crazy bitch got me hella craving some fruit roll-ups."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about how late this is, work has been crazy. No promise of faster updates in the future, either :( Doing my best!
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com)!


	25. I Can't Keep a Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has some nsfw content

I’m laying in a bed that’s way, way too soft.

Like, on the commonly agreed upon one to ten scale of mattress firmness, this shit is like a negative one. I feel like I’m being enveloped into the thing, like it’s trying to hug me, or maybe smother me. And it’s weird, because I like myself a good firm mattress, yo, but it’s comforting. It’s good. I feel cradled and comfy and supported. It’s a hell of a lot better than some shitty plank on a boxspring.

(Which I can’t remember ever sleeping on. My childhood foster beds tended towards the marshmallow-y goodness of a leaky air mattress for the most part. How weird, that I suddenly feel such an aversion to the thought of rusty springs that poke and jab.)

I’m laying in this hug-bed, staring up at blackness that might be a ceiling, and there’s this restlessness stalking around inside me. It’s not simmering anxiety, or listless boredom, or existential angst, or my dearest friend, self-pitying loneliness. It’s lighter. It’s almost fluffy. It’s a low buzzing hum of something that might actually be unstoppable glee?

I think that maybe I feel…

Wonderful.

Perfect.

 _Happy_.

It’s… fucking mythical. Happiness. Not lurking behind some unseen obstacle, not dancing coyly just out of my reach, not laughing and smirking at the very idea that I, Dave Michael Strider Johnson, could ever hope to feel such an emotion. It’s just right there, nestled up against my heart, spreading through my chest, filling me with the kind of energy that makes it impossible to sit still.

“Hey,” I say into the darkness.

No response.

“Hey,” I repeat.

This time, a tiny little grumble reaches my ears. Soft and sullen. The happiness starts scurrying around inside my torso like a gleeful possum in trash.

“Hey,” I say again. I roll onto my side, sinking even deeper into the bed. I can see only a dim outline beside me in the dark. I squirm closer, until the silhouette and I are pressed together. Skin on skin.

Must have been good sex, if I’m feeling like this.

I roll my weight and jab a pointed finger against the grumbling form beside me. “Hey, bro!”

“ _What?_ ” he -- definitely a he -- bursts out.

“Don’t be like that, come on, dude.”

“I’ll have you know, asshole, I was already fucking globes-deep in getting some _sleep_ , believe it or not, when you started squawking out of your food-hole like some newly hatched --”

“Okay cool, but since you brought it up, wanna go globes-deep in _me_?” I ask, wiggling my eyebrows into the darkness.

A moment of silence, and then:

“Um. Yes.”

I laugh and roll on top of him. I’m half-hard and his skin is like fucking velvet. I nuzzle into the crook of his neck and he hums and squirms and tilts his head back to give me access. He’s more clean-shaven than I would have thought possible, and the taste of his sweat as I lick up to his neck is somewhere between cloyingly sweet and surprisingly bitter.

He growls. It’s shockingly, _alarmingly_ feral, coming from somewhere deep in his chest and sounding kind of like a bonesaw. But then his hands are sliding up my spine, and he’s flipping me onto my back, and I’m pinned against -- or more like, inside -- the too-soft bed. He bites at my collarbone.

His teeth are _not_ fucking around and I yelp in surprised -- but not unpleasant -- alarm. It doesn’t hurt, not really, but it’s just enough of a pinch that it makes every hair on my body stand right the fuck up. I am no longer only _half_ -hard. Something beeps.

“Shh!” He snorts. “I think Jade is still on the couch!”

“Couch,” I echo, squirming up against him and getting a sharp and satisfying intake of breath for my trouble. There’s that beeping sound again. Is _he_ making that? “Oh shit, you said couch and not, fucking, Relaxatron 3000 or whatever, fuck. Am I witnessing cultural appropriation? Are you appropriating _my_ words, Karkat, because I don’t think I need to tell you --”

“Oh my fucking shit, shut up!” He covers my mouth with his and I have just enough time to be alarmed as I feel something -- _slide out of him_ down where the junk things are happening --

Before there’s that fucking _beep_ again and I blink and then blink again and my phone is buzzing and chirping beside me, in my bed, at the Palazzo, in Beverly Hills, and I’m as hard as a rock because I definitely was just having a sex dream.

A really, really good sex dream.

I look at the phone and then close my eyes tight. I roll onto my back. Stare up at my dumb plush red canopy hanging above me. Drag a hand down my face. Sigh.

I am pitching the fucking big top down in the bone zone, but that’s not why it seems like I just had a house dropped on me.

I feel so… bereft.

The sex dream is doing that thing _all_ dreams do, fading and leaving only images and impressions and feelings. And it’s the feelings that are doing me in. I want to bury myself back in my bed (it’s too firm now, bring back the soft huggy mattress, fuck) and put a pillow over my head and fall back asleep, push through consciousness and reality until I break through the barriers and find myself back where I had been. Safe and horny and happy. _Actually_ happy. I want to tunnel back to that place and just live there.

But it’s fading, fading, and I’m back here, in the real world, with my beeping phone and my painful boner, and I don’t think there’s any way back to that place I’d been.

I sit up and grab my phone.

CG: HI.  
CG: ARE YOU AWAKE?  
CG: FUCK, IT’S ALMOST NOON. WAKE THE FUCK UP. KILL ME IF I GET AS LAZY AS YOU WHEN I’M OLD.

The reminder that he considers me old kind of feels like being dunked in ice water.

CG: OH MY GOD.  
CG: ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE ME WALK ALL THE WAY THE FUCK ACROSS THE IDIOTICALLY BIG HOUSE TO DRAG YOUR VELVET-CLAD ASS OUT OF THAT DAMN LOVESHACK BED?  
CG: I SWEAR TO GOD.

I fumble with the phone.

TG: jesus  
TG: h christ  
TG: im up dude its cool  
TG: i mean i get that youre still you over there but for real  
TG: calm yo tits  
CG: FUCK YOU.  
CG: MY TITS ARE PERFECTLY FUCKING CALM, YOU’RE JUST INFURIATING.  
TG: nah pretty sure your tits are flipping their shit  
TG: flailing around everywhere  
TG: all like  
TG: going on about my velvet-clad ass  
TG: gettin all worked up  
TG: one is screaming and shit  
TG: the other one is just stalking around and slamming stuff on counters shes the passive aggressive one  
TG: you know the type  
CG: TALKING TO YOU NEVER FAILS TO BE AN EXERCISE IN TWISTING MY BRAIN INTO A FUCKING PRETZEL TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF THE PREPOSTEROUS THINGS YOU SAY.  
TG: oh shit  
TG: preposterous  
TG: we got some rose lalonde noise going on up in here  
CG: SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR ONE SECOND.  
CG: I COOKED.

That stops my in my tracks. I look down at the phone, furrowing my brow.

TG: what  
TG: you mean like  
TG: you ordered in  
TG: or whatever?  
CG: NO, I MEAN LIKE, I COOKED US FOOD AND IT’S GETTING COLD SITTING OUT ON THE TABLE.  
TG: hold up  
TG: roll back  
TG: let me get this straight  
TG: you can cook?  
CG: YES?  
TG: how  
CG: ??????????  
CG: BY KNOWING HOW TO PERFORM BASIC SKILLS ALL HUMAN BEINGS POSSESS?  
TG: ok well  
TG: now you’re just being rude  
CG: OH MY GOD, COME TO THE FUCKING KITCHEN.  
TG: what did you cook?  
TG: bro  
TG: what did you cook dude  
TG: dude  
TG: fuck  
TG: karkat  
TG: karkat  
_message not delivered. retry?_

I toss my phone to one side, grinning and kind of… kind of tingling all over. I try to think of the last time someone other than Rose cooked something for me in a way that wasn’t a business transaction. The last I can remember was when I was -- fuck, twenty-two? And it was one of Rose’s roomates, so that barely counts.

Karkat definitely counts.

It’s impossible not to picture it. Karkat in my massive kitchen, in front of my massive chrome stove, with six pots all going at once. He’s got his brow all furrowed, and he’s barely got it under control, but damn if the little dude doesn’t keep it together. He’s a little frazzled, sure, but he’s got this _vision_ of a meal, and it’s going to come out, so help him. There’s flour in his hair and sauce on his apron, and he’s getting through this by thinking about me. He’s stirring two things at once, and he’s _only_ wearing that apron, and my eyes glide down the pleasing curve of his brown back to the round swell of that perfect ass, bare and soft. He looks over his shoulder at me, smirks. His eyes are hooded. I walk over and wrap my arms around his chest. Pull him close against me. He’s warm through my pyjamas. I tilt his head back and to the side so I can see his face, and then I --

Fuck.

Nope.

Stop that.

I am way too fucking worked up to imagine Karkat. And the worst part is, I can’t even jerk off and clear my head for the same reason I haven’t been able to jerk off since Christmas.

Every time I try, I’m thinking about Karkat within twenty seconds.

And I am trying really, really hard not to do that.

I pick up my phone again.

TG: ok sorry give me just like three more minutes  
TG: sorry

I run the coldest shower I can and suffer through it until my boner’s been brought to heel. The piercing power of the cold water chases the last remnants of my dream away, leaving me freezing and miserable as I pull on my robe and make my way to the dining room, leaving puddles behind me.

The amazing smells coming from the kitchen draw me into the adjoining dining room. No sign of food or Karkat, but the mouth-watering smells are close by.

“Yo,” I call.

“ _Finally_ ,” he responds from the kitchen. “I’m taking everything out of the warming drawer!”

“What’s a warming drawer?”

He heaves a massive sigh, which was what I wanted, so good job, me.

I sit down at the head of the table. It’s hard not to think of the way this room had looked on Christmas Eve, illuminated by nothing but the watery light of Karkat’s phone as we crawled through one another’s swampy ditches. It’s been two weeks, and we’re well into 2012, and that night is still always nipping at our heels, I think. It’s sure as shit on _my_ mind. The news chatters excitedly about Betty Crocker selling us tech that’s going to strengthen the ozone against solar winds, ending global warming forever. Rose’s texts have dropped way off, and I _know_ that she’s out there on some mission, and that she thinks I should be in on it. And something else happened that night, too, partly in this room. Admitting and acknowledging how fucking pathetically into Karkat I am on every single possible level has changed the way it _feels_ when we’re in the same room.

At least, it has for me.

I hate that I don’t know if he feels any of it.

I idly entertain the thought of grabbing him when he comes out. Dipping and kissing him like we’re on the Bachelorette. I wonder what he would do. Then, I patiently remind myself that he’s seventeen and that’s illegal and, also, morally wrong or something I guess fucking whatever.

It gets super hard to remember that when he trundles into the room, haphazardly balancing four bowls in two hands and I look at him with stars in my eyes and sigh like a fifteen year old girl when that fucking ‘Baby’ song comes on.

He’s _not_ wearing only an apron, obviously, because that was my dick talking. But I swear, he almost looks cuter with the sleeves of his gigantic hoodie rolled all the way up to his skinny elbows, a little stitch between his brows and his bottom lip caught between his teeth. Steam rises from the bowls he’s juggling, and they rattle when he sheds them onto the table.

“Yo,” I say, trying to sound casual, but casual is impossible because Karkat Vantas is gorgeous and here and he cooked a meal for me, a real meal, that he cooked, for me.

(And he’s seventeen.)

“Hold on!” he says, and disappears back into the kitchen. The smells coming from the dishes get me worked up and my mouth waters while my stomach growls. I remember quite suddenly that food isn’t _just_ a thing that a boy you like, teehee, can make for you to make you feel amazing. It’s also generally nourishing, and occasionally delicious.

“Shit!” I tilt my chin up to shout. “Fuck, you’re killing me, Karkat! I’m fucking dying! How am I supposed to sit here with this shit and not just like crawl up on the table and, you know, start just eating it with two hands, all grunting and flipping out and --”

He reappears, carrying another dish and, miraculously, plates and silverware. I’d honestly forgotten I had that shit.

“Calm down,” he says, rolling his eyes. It makes him look really young. I wish that registered in a way that made me love him or even just _want_ him less. God, I’m fucking disgusting “Look, it’s all here. Let’s eat.”

He slides the last dish onto the table, and then sets a plate and a fork and a spoon in front of me. It’s all torturously domestic and I have this image in my head of reaching out and pulling him into my lap…

I shake it off.

I’ve got to stop.

“It smells fucking amazing,” I say. “What is it?”

“Couscous, beef tagine, payesa, and saffron rice.”

Shit. “Fuck. Damn. That’s quite the spread.”

“Yeah, well…” He settles into the chair closest to me, and scoots even closer, so that I can feel his body heat coming close to my elbow. “I can make American food, too, but I haven’t eaten anything _else_ in months. So I thought… maybe I’d make something from home.”

My heart falls and I look away, swallowing. Right. That’s -- obvious, isn’t it? God, I’m such an idiot. He’s not cooking for me. He’s cooking for himself. “Couscous is Indian, isn’t it?” I ask, trying to sound cool, but it comes out sounding _hella_ sullen.

But Karkat doesn’t seem to notice my tone, just the apparent sacrilege of my words. “Oh, fuck you!” he snaps. “Couscous is Moroccan and you’re such a fucking white guy!”

“Well, I mean, that’s objectively true, so…”

“ _Indian_ , really? Really, Dave? Fuck you, no fucking way. This is why I did this! You need to eat something _interesting_ for a change!”

Oh.

So… I was part of his reason for cooking, anyway.

Okay.

While I’m feeling stupid for being, well, _stupid_ about this whole thing, it all escalates dangerously. Karkat leans over and starts spooning food onto _my_ plate. Rich looking, aromatic couscous, rice that smells like expensive perfume, and a salad and a stir-fry style dish, both mouth-watering. I can only guess which is tagine and which is payesa. I don’t try, and let myself just bask in the inexplicably simple joy of Karkat Vantas putting food on my plate.

“The peyesa and the tagine are both good mixed with the rice,” he says, quieter than usual, settling back down into his chair.

Well, good. Now I don’t have to admit I don’t know which is which. I mix some of the salad into the rice -- it’s smells like vinegar and olives. And it’s fucking -- amazing.

“Jesus,” I say.

“What?” he shoots back, sounding defensive.

“No, I just -- fuck, this is incredible.”

“Oh,” he says, and then pushes some hair back from his forehead. He smiles. Just a tiny bit. My heart _melts._

“Thanks, dude. I mean, shit, thanks. I’ve had some fancy-ass grub in my time, but yeah, damn. This is seriously amazing.”

“Well, yes. Of course it is. I know what I’m doing!”

“Fuck yeah, you do!”

He smiles again, and it’s a bit wider. I have to look away, shoveling couscous into my mouth. Looking at Karkat smiling and not trying to hide it is -- is like looking into the sun. I can’t be held responsible for what I might do, in the face of that shit.

I take my time chewing. I want to ask him dumb questions like _where did you get the ingredients_ or _who taught you to cook_ or _man we got a regular Betty Crocker up in here_. That last one is especially inappropriate, which doesn’t bother me, but isn’t really funny, which kind of does. I haven’t figured out how to joke about her again, yet. It’s like I forgot how to make light about it after she showed up on my TV and stole Christmas.

“I finished another Juliet Harlowe,” Karkat says, out of nowhere.

“Oh, yeah? Shit, was it ridiculous? How many times is the word ‘scandal’ used? Did you pop a good, solid boner during the steamy bits?”

Oh, fucking Jesus.

That last bit is out of my mouth and galloping away before I even realize how fucking stupid it is. I fly all up in a tizzy in my head, trying to figure out how to walk this shit back and be cool and make it so that _wasn’t_ super weird, and then --

“Um, yeah,” Karkat says. “They were really good.”

I swallow a ball of rice and payesa-or-tagine. It tastes like sawdust. My brain is a maze full of dead ends and every dead end is playing a reel of Karkat squirmingly turned on from Rose’s dumb housewife porn. Don’t think about that, Dave. Or that. _Especially_ not that. What’s wrong with you.

“Cool,” I say, hoarsely.

“She’s, uh. She’s honestly really good at -- I mean, fuck, I just mean, considering how gay she is!”

“I’m gonna take your word for it.” I’m drowning in a sea of imaginary naked Karkats.

His voice is starting to climb in volume, which I’m used to and usually find endearing when I’m not fighting off a lot of thoughts I shouldn’t be thinking. “Actually, she’s driving me fucking batshit right now and it’s starting to make me actually unhinged! I’ve sent her thirty fucking messages in the last three days about _her_ infectious writing and she’s ignoring my messages like some kind of better-than-you princess!”

He finishes loud enough that the plates rattle.

I swallow my food and I raise my eyebrows. “That sucks, bro?”

“Don’t ‘that sucks, bro’ me!” Karkat retorts. “She’s the one getting me -- I mean -- not _getting me_ , you know what I mean! She writes these scenes that could cook an egg on the fucking pages of the book and then won’t even talk with me about them? What the fuck! How is that not the tackiest shit anyone ever blasted out of their ass?”

Nope. Fuck no. I’m not thinking about Karkat, frustrated and stroking himself through his pants, trying to get Rose to… I don’t know… like… book club sext him? Fuck. No. Absolutely not.

“I am really not sure this is worth getting worked up about,” I say firmly. I look back at my plate, desperately looking for something to redirect this conversation. “What’s in this stuff?” I ask.

He glances down and then shrugs. “It’s salad. There’s salad stuff in it, obviously.” He shakes his head. “Not only is Rose the one who _wrote_ this distracting nonsense, she also _gave_ them to me. What is that, if not an invitation to talk about it?” He peers up at me, and I swallow hard under the force of his eyes.

“I like the salad,” I say.

“Do _you_ want to talk about it with me?” he asks.

And there’s something about it, just a little -- a little pout in his lip, a little flutter in his lashes, a little tilt in his head, and I realize --

Shit.

He’s -- not flirting. Not the right word. He’s actually upset, he’s ranting, he’s worked up, he’s _worked up_ , and that’s the core of it, isn’t it? Karkat is _worked the fuck up._ Fuck, and I think _I’m_ tightly wound over pent up energy? If he’s feeling even a tenth of what I’m feeling -- and even if not, fuck -- he’s a seventeen year old reading Rose’s wild erotic fanfiction and he used to have lots of sex, if what he did can really count as sex, and now he isn’t having any sex, and he’s looking for something, right now, and I’m here, and -- and intentionally or not, he is using those little tricks he picked up as a pro _on me._

Yeah.

I’m pretty fucking sure that a frustrated Karkat is straight up low key coming on to _me_.

And I don’t kid myself into thinking that it won't one hundred percent work.

I shoot to my feet.

He flinches back and I feel like shit. I instinctively go to -- fuck, I don’t know, reach for him, comfort him? Cause that little flinch makes him look young, which makes me feel protective, which gets all mingled up with all the shit going on inside of me and --

And I’m a loaded gun right now.

Too much pent up energy. I need to get my rocks off, or I’m going to start something I can’t stop, and then what?

Then everything good about this, about him, about us, is ruined.

“I gotta go out.”

“I -- what? Go -- _where_?”

I grimace. “Out,” I repeat.

“Really? Really, right now? You haven’t left your atrocious fucking ‘Palace of Love’ for anything but to get the _mail_ in almost a month, but _now_ you suddenly have some incredibly important thing to accomplish out there?”

“Yep,” I say.

Karkat’s mouth twists. He glares furiously at me and then drops his head. “Fine,” he says, and he sounds… hurt. “I get it. But _fuck_ you, you could at least have the fucking balls to _tell_ me you don’t actually like any of this food instead of just blasting out of here with some stupid paper-thin excuse, jackass.”

His shoulders hunch.

Fuck.

No, come on, Karkat, no way. I look at him, frozen in place. I have to tell him how much -- how much I _appreciate_ this shit, how fucking life-changingly wonderful it is to have anyone, but _especially_ him, care about me enough to cook for me, Jesus _Christ_. I have got to put my arm around him and tell him that he shouldn’t feel bad, the food is amazing, and he’s wonderful, and I love him, and then pull him close and kiss him until he’s dizzy and --

Yeah.

There’s no way I can do any of that without it becoming _all_ of that.

So I run a hand through my hair and grit my teeth and swallow all the shit in my throat and just grit out: “Yeah. Sorry.”

His hands curl into fists and I beat it out of there before I --

Before this loaded gun starts firing.

I can fix it later, once I get some relief and stop acting like a horny teenager with blue balls.

(Which is what Karkat is, which makes me a fucking -- fuck. Fuck. _Fuck._ )

On the way to the garage, I pull out my phone. I shouldn’t, I _know_ I shouldn’t, but I open Rose’s SMS window anyway.

TG: yo  
TG: uh  
TG: fuck  
TG: if youve got a sec i could really use some of that psychological insight or whatever if youve got any available  
TG: just  
TG: let me know  
TG: hit me up  
TG: ring my bell  
TG: you know etc one of those  
TG: or dont  
TG: that might better  
TG: actually yeah  
TG: lets go with dont

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, sorry for how slow updates have been! My deadlines at work are mostly back on track, so hopefully it will be faster from now on!
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr!](http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com/)


	26. No

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has nsfw content. it also deals very frankly with some of the heavier subjects from the tags.

There are the basic elements of a disguise in my glove box, and I start fishing them out while I tear down the drive and leave Karkat and the Palazzo both behind. A cashmere scarf, a pair of fake thick-rimmed glasses, and a baseball cap. I make a face at the hat, driving one-handed as I throw all these anti-Strider elements onto me. The glasses make me look intellectual. The scarf makes me look fancy. The hat hides my hair. And goes against personal brand. I’ve always had the incredibly strong opinion that wearing a ballcap makes you look like the wrong kind of douchebag, so nobody expects to see me in them.

I check myself out in the rearview.

Yeah. All that plus the worn jeans and tee I grabbed? Definitely don’t look like a hot shot director, that’s for sure. 

I look anonymous, and attractive.

Check and check.

I drive into town.

There are a lot of haunts I could go to if I want to take my time about this, but… I don’t. This isn’t the kind of itch where you take the time to browse around, looking for just the right thing to hit the spot. It’s more like a burning compulsion sitting right behind the dick, and I head straight for West Hollywood and a bar I know where everybody is hot and nobody asks a lot of questions.

I’m imagining a cute little twink with dark, curly hair and rich brown skin and whose face _doesn’t_ look like Karkat, definitely not, but maybe is just enough like him that it’ll make me go back towards sane, just a little. I’m imagining him falling into my arms and… etc.

I glance over at my phone, on the passenger seat, the entire time I drive. I’m waiting for it to buzz. I don’t know if I’m waiting for Karkat or Rose, but it seems as if one of them is going to call, right?

(Do I want them to stop me? Why would I want that? I have _got_ to do this or I’m going to go crazy or do something fucked up or both. Probably both.)

(I don’t want them to stop me. I want that imaginary twink. I want someone to fucking hold me.)

(I want Karkat to fucking hold me.)

I grit my teeth and focus on the road.

Phone doesn’t buzz.

I loosen my scarf a bit walking from my car to the bar entrance. January or not, it’s a little warm. I can’t help but glance up at the sky, thinking about global warming and the Empress and the End of the World. Is this how it goes? She lets us think she’s going to help and then just… global warms us? I shake my head. Fuck, Betty. Coulda just let humanity deal with ourselves. It would only take a couple hundred years, really. Not such a brilliant evil plan. Nothing some dumbass humans couldn’t manage all on their own.

I sense movement and turn my head. A guy on the sidewalk is eyeing me, and I pull the brim of my hat down over my eyes. No superstar here, I swear. I hurry into the bar.

A little bell over the door rings as I slip inside. It’s dim and there are rainbow neon lights running up everything and there’s some low-key EDM playing. Good stuff, honestly. A few heads turn. A few give me a second look.

I check my phone to find more nothing.

All right, then. My path is clear. I go through the buffet here and find the diamond in the rough, the chosen one, the guy I fuck and get this shit out of my system. I square my shoulders, head over to the bar, and take a seat.

It takes about six seconds before someone’s sidling over to me. And I’m not going to lie -- that feels good. One look at me, and some dude wants to bone. I mean, good. I’m eminently boneable. Gossip sites are rife with my conquests talking about what a good and giving lover I am, how awesome I look naked. I’m desireable, I’m attractive, I’m hot shit, people want me.

I turn my best smile on the guy getting close.

“Hey,” he says.

“Yo,” I reply.

He isn’t the perfect not-Karkat I’m imagining, but he’s slight and cute and maybe if I close my eyes while we go at it, he’ll transform into what I want. And he’s clearly ready to go, practically squirming in his chair. His eagerness gets my motor going. He wants me, and it’s nice to be wanted.

I shimmy my barstool over and put in the requisite amount of conversation. A couple lines, a few smiles, and I lean over, mouth against his ear. “Wanna get out of here?” I ask, low and sweet. I feel him shudder and it’s like an electric shock all through me, the effect I can have on him. On anyone.

I follow him out of the bar and to a little hybrid compact car, which makes me shake my head. This environmentally conscious guy has no idea what he’s in for. One man’s pathetic fight against global warming would be pretty senseless even without an alien overlord here, on Earth, planning to do _something_ to our ozone layer. The front seat is cramped and his radio is playing something extremely pretentious and indie. God, why is LA like this?

I imagine cracking some joke to Rose, or to Karkat. Rose would shake her head and inform me calmly that she likes this song. Karkat would glare and remind me that I’m the one who _chooses_ to live here, dumbfuck. The company of the attractive stranger suddenly feels alien and strange and wrong, and, and… _bad_

But then he slides into his seat and shoots me a little look that puts me back in the zone. He puts his hand on my knee and squeezes before he starts up his dumb little car. I put my hand on his dick and massage it through his pants. He’s hard and that’s good. That’s great.

Something occurs to me.

Shit, my phone must be on silent.

One hand still on the guy’s dick, I fumble with the other in my pocket. I pull out my phone and check it.

The volume’s up and vibrate is on. No messages, no missed calls.

I fold my lips and put it back in my pants.

“What should I call you?” I ask my new friend. I rub down the length of his hard cock, smiling faintly at him.

“Uh,” he says, eyes locked on the road. “Henry.”

“Alright, Henry,” I say. It’s definitely not his real name.

“What about you?” he asks.

I think about it and then laugh quietly. “Michael,” I say, because that _is_ technically my real name and a big part of me finds that hysterically fucking funny right now.

We park in a packed driveway and he leads me to a basement apartment. The second the side door closes behind us and we’re at the top of the stairs, he pulls me close and tugs my head down for a kiss. He’s shorter than me. He’s about as short as Karkat. I close my eyes and put my arms around him and we stumble as one four-legged, grunting entity down the stairs, flirting coyly with cracked skulls.

By the time we’re in the apartment proper, he’s pulling my shirt off my head and I’ve got my hand in his pants. It’s been months since I touched another guy’s dick and I’d almost forgotten how different and how good it felt. Henry (not his real name) is groaning into my mouth and I’m trying to shove his pants down and jack him off at the same time and he’s getting my jeans open.

We fall into bed. Or, I guess, into futon. The apartment is kind of trashy. All Henry’s money must be going to his nice ethical car and I doubt his acting career (it’s always an acting career) has taken off, yet. I entertain getting his real name, calling up one of my friends in casting, blowing his life up. He’s got a good, young, fresh look, and the thought of playing benevolent angel in disguise appeals to me.

I straddle his hips and look down at him.

He looks back up at me, eyes half-lidded.

Yeah. He could be a star. He’s got mesmerizing blue eyes and beige, tanned skin, and sandy blonde hair that would be brown if he lived anywhere less sunny. A dusting of freckles spread across his nose. I doubt he could make it as a big A lister, not just yet, but they keep telling me that TV acting is coming back, usually while trying to get me to agree to some Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff Miniseries on HBO or whatever. He’d work well for something like that. A miniseries, that is, not SBaHJ. That shit can rot in hell.

“You look familiar,” he murmurs.

“One of those faces,” I say, and bend to kiss him.

His tongue is in my mouth and he’s grinding up against me. His groans are turning into whimpers, and I’m thinking about what’s about to happen. I’m thinking about him howling into the pillow, grinding back against me, and it doesn’t feel right. That’s usually how I like it, with guys, at least, but something about the image feels wrong.

I’m half imagining he’s Karkat.

And I can’t -- and maybe don’t want to -- imagine Karkat on all fours.

I imagine something else altogether, in fact.

I break off our kiss and put my mouth to his ear. “Yo,” I say, breathless.

“Ah,” he replies.

“You still here, Henry?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Uh. Sorry if this is gonna come out wrong, but how would you feel about giving it the old switcheroo?”

“Mn?”

I roll my eyes. Are you gonna make me ask, dude? Really?

I’m imagining Karkat replying in spite of myself; in spite of everything. _Fuck off,_ he says. _Do you think I’m a fucking psychic, over here? Do I look like an oracle for your dick? Oh, hold the fuck on for just a second, maybe if you weren’t sending such mixed fucking signals, I wouldn’t need to be?!_

“What is it?” Henry asks breathlessly. “Don’t stop.”

He isn’t Karkat.

I sigh and nuzzle against his neck. “Wanna fuck me, dude? Now that we’re in flagrante delicto, here, I’m finding myself kind of not into the way things were going up to this point.”

“O-oh.”

I think he’s going to say no, but then, suddenly, he’s got his arms up around my shoulders and is flipping me around on the bed so that I’m pinned against it. A flash of deja vu from my dream last night hits me like a train. I swallow hard and brush it off and have just a second to gasp before he closes his mouth over mine and I groan deep and long and sweet.

All of his weight is on me. He grinds his hips down against mine. My groan turns to a whimper and he captures it with his lips. He plunders my mouth with his tongue like he’s a Juliet Harlowe hero who could get away with using a phrase like “plunder my mouth.”

“Okay,” I sigh when he breaks away to nip down my jaw. “Okay, awesome, didn’t think you were gonna be down.”

“No way,” he says. “I just thought… um, you know, you’re older, taller, and took charge, so you probably wanted…”

“I want you to fuck me out of my _mind_ ,” I say, very firmly.

He laughs.

And gets to work.

I don’t know how much time passes, because I kind of black out at this point. And it’s good. It’s really good. This is why I love sex. It feels good, yeah, but that’s not it. That’s maybe ten percent. There’s just… just _something_ about going... somewhere else. I’m living in a moment that grows to another moment, and then to another, where there’s nothing but two bodies, hands and mouth on my skin, my blood thrumming in my head, and the feeling of a real human presence pressed up against me, two souls pounding away at each other and linked as long as they keep at it.

My legs are up over my head and his cock is all the way up my ass and my dick is on his left hand and my hair is in his right when I’m shocked back to myself like I’ve been doused with cold water.

It takes me a second to figure out why I snapped out of my stupor. In that second, Henry’s hands both clench and he groans and cries my (real) (but not real) name at the top of his lungs, and I get a gut full of his cum.

I realize that my text alert had just gone off.

“Fuck,” Henry pants, falling atop me. “Fuck, you didn’t come. Fuck, fuck, sorry, I thought you were there.”

“I…” I’m dazed and confused. I need to get to my phone.

“I never do this! Shit, here, I’ll get you --”

He starts pulling at my dick. For a second, it perks up in interest. But I’m way too stuck in my own head. My phone is right there. Right over there. In my discarded pants. Someone texted me. It’s Karkat, wondering where I am. It’s Rose, and she’s in trouble. It’s Karkat, mad at me for leaving. It’s Rose, mad at me because she knows I ditched my tail.

The feeling of this stranger’s hand on me is suddenly revolting, and I push him off a little too hard. He’s so tired and post coital that he rolls and groans but doesn’t seem to notice my mental state.

“Sorry, fuck…” he whispers roughly. I watch his adam’s apple bob.

“It’s cool,” I say.

I roll out of his bed, grabbing my pants and my shirt and taking them into his bathroom. It’s small, but clean, and I sit on the toilet and just breathe for a second. I come totally back to myself. He was right -- I _had_ been just about to come. And maybe that’s why I feel like such shit. This can happen, I’ve heard. Edging gone wrong. The world feels unreal. I pinch myself, then slap myself across the face. It doesn’t feel like much. The sound of traffic on the street above rings in my ears in a way that seems canned and artificial.

It’s like there’s a barrier between me and myself.

I hear Rose’s voice as if she’s right beside me. _You’re dissociating, Dave,_ she says. _I know you talked about this with that therapist I sent you to. Have you been taking your medication?_

No. I haven’t. Not since I took all of it at once. Karkat’s my medication, Rose, you should know that. You’re the one who prescribed him to me.

I fish out my phone.

TT: Where are you?

I look at the message.

And, fucking preposterously, a little smile crawls across my face.

Rose still cares.

TG: hey

I sit back on the toilet, close my eyes, and wait for her to respond. I don’t have to wait very long.

TT: Oh, thank god.  
TG: whats up  
TT: Are you all right?

I take stock of my situation. Sitting in a stranger’s bathroom in a stranger’s apartment. Naked, hiding on a toilet. My withering dick, the load leaking out of my ass, the stranger in the bed. The near total blackout during the sex I’d come out here looking for.

TG: uh  
TG: debatable  
TT: God _dammit_ , Dave.  
TT: What are you on?  
TG: hah  
TG: the shitter tbh  
TT: Are you high?  
TG: like is the shitter a high sitter?  
TG: not sure let me check  
TT: Dave, please.  
TT: I’m going to ask this again, and please actually give me an answer this time.  
TT: Where are you?  
TG: uhhhhh  
TG: not sure actually  
TG: west hollywood last time i checked  
TG: not sure we might have driven to a different borough  
TT: Who is “we.”  
TG: shit  
TG: im pretty sure you’re smart enough to puzzle that out out on your own rose  
TG: but heres a hint  
TG: my butthole is exposed to air  
TT: I can’t possibly imagine why I should be surprised.  
TT: Please tell me you’re at least not actually in the _act_ right now? Can I have that?  
TG: nah  
TG: hiding in his bathroom  
TT: Small miracles.  
TT: What the hell are you doing, Dave?  
TT: You’re not supposed to leave Karkat.  
TG: actually i think karkat was the one not supposed to leave me  
TG: i distinctly recall this  
TG: i was never given any dovetailing instructions  
TG: which makes this totally unfair  
TG: if you ask me  
TG: rah rah abuse of power  
TG: no taxation without representation  
TT: Could you not?  
TG: what  
TT: Pretending as if you’re all right?  
TT: I know you’re not!  
TT: You sent me those messages, and when I checked in with Karkat, he claims you left in a strange huff _hours_ ago?  
TT: This is a cry for help.  
TT: Could you at least admit it and accept my aid?

I look down at the phone. I’m not sure what to say. Am I crying for help? I’m not sure. I’m really not. I try to put myself back in that place I was when I’d messaged Rose, and I can’t get there or remember why I’d done it. Rose hadn’t been willing to be there for me when I’d tried to _kill_ myself. Right now, sure, this isn’t my best moment, but I don’t want to be dead, either. I’m doing better. I really am.

So…

I jump near out of my skin when Henry bangs on the door. “Hey,” he calls. “Dude, I’m sorry, I -- I’m sorry, but look, I gotta pee. Let me in. I’ll finish you, I swear.”

My stomach turns at the thought of seeing him. I need to get home, back to Karkat. Oh, but then my stomach turns at the thought of seeing _him_ , too.

I grit my teeth and thumb out a message, ignoring my erstwhile lover.

TG: fuck  
TG: youre right  
TG: FUCK rose  
TG: i need your help  
TT: Okay.  
TT: Tell me what I need to do.  
TG: i

“I’m gonna piss myself, dude,” Henry whines.

I stand up. I throw on my t-shirt and tug on my pants and boxers. I ruffle my hair in the mirror and throw open the door. Henry is there, naked, and his eyes brighten a bit when he sees me. I don’t look directly at him, just brush past. I leave the hat, glasses, and scarf. Fuck disguises. Henry is calling after me as I head up the stairs, leaving him behind, but hey, he’s gotta pee. He can’t follow me.

I ask Siri to send me back to the bar. She seems bemused I’m walking. Look, Siri, be cool. I’ve got some shit going on, here.

I tab back into my messenger app.

TT: Yes?  
TT: Dave?  
TT: What is it?  
TT: Please reply. I swear, if you’re just messing with me, there is going to be hell to pay.  
TG: nah no mess  
TG: cross my heart  
TT: There you are.  
TG: yeah had to evacuate the love nest  
TT: What’s going on, Dave?

I take a deep breath.

TG: okay here goes  
TG: dont say dick until im finished  
TG: like i swear  
TG: dont  
TG: this story is fucked up  
TG: and its even more fucked up if you stop it halfway through  
TG: and i need you to just  
TG: hear the whole thing  
TG: before you  
TG: uh  
TG: hate me  
TG: right  
TG: so....  
TG: karkat  
TG: i met him in ibiza  
TG: well you know this  
TG: okay skipping the really obvious bits  
TG: he interrupted me halfway through trying to jump off a pier  
TG: and i know what youre thinking  
TG: why dave  
TG: i thought you took a bunch of pills like a desperate housewife or whatever  
TG: well youre right  
TG: this was the first attempt  
TG: which karkat also thwarted  
TG: tho  
TG: not intentionally this time  
TG: he just startled me and I fell back and he caught me  
TG: and like  
TG: ugh  
TG: i maybe shouldnt tell the absolute longest version of this after all  
TG: because your silence is starting to make me fucking crazy??  
TG: i feel like im giving a speech to an empty room  
TG: or something  
TG: so  
TG: i guess  
TG: ok  
TG: the thing is i just had this feeling about him  
TG: like just from the first moment there was something  
TG: i dont know  
TG: i cant explain it  
TG: i was high at the time and i forget how it all felt exactly so im kind of remembering the memory of the feelings more than actually recalling actual… whatever  
TG: i just had this feeling like  
TG: like this  
TG: compulsion  
TG: i guess  
TG: and  
TG: i  
TG: uh  
TG: i paid him to have sex with me  
TT: …  
TG: you werent supposed to say anything  
TT: Dave.  
TG: ok look dont get worked up  
TT: How could you?  
TG: look wait  
TT: How could you do that?  
TG: hold up it doesnt end there  
TG: he was a hooker see and he took me back to his hotel  
TG: like the one he works out of  
TT: No.  
TT: We’re not --  
TT: You don’t get to just keep telling this story!  
TG: rose  
TT: Stop typing.  
TG: look  
TG: i know you have baggage here but  
TT: BAGGAGE?  
TG: rose please just let me explain this  
TT: You’re calling my feelings about sexually assaulting children BAGGAGE?  
TG: nothing happened!  
TG: i couldnt do it nothing happened ok?  
TG: we kissed and then i couldnt go through with it  
TT: And that makes it… okay?  
TG: look rose  
TG: im not  
TG: im not going to pretend im not a piece of shit here i just  
TG: i need help  
TG: theres something else going on here  
TG: i know there is  
TG: theres something…  
TG: i know him rose  
TG: its like somewhere in my fucking gut i fucking know him  
TG: its not like im  
TG: like  
TG: im not like your dad okay its nothing fucking like that  
TT: STOP IT.  
TT: He is NOT my father.  
TT: And I don’t care what excuses you bring.  
TT: I don’t care what mystical fucking excuse you think you have.  
TT: Karkat is seventeen!  
TT: You know that, don’t you?  
TT: There are no mitigating circumstances that can change that fact!  
TG: i know  
TG: i fucking know!  
TG: if i didnt know do you think id be fucking out here trying to get my nut with a complete stranger and giving myself some sort of fucking existential crisis when i could be back at my own fucking house with karkat instead?  
TT: How could I have had you so wrong?  
TT: You’re sick.  
TT: You’re disturbed, Dave.  
TT: Bad enough that you took advantage of me. I’m an adult. I can take it. But this?  
TG: whoa now  
TG: hold the fuck up  
TG: i didnt take advantage of shit!  
TT: And I put him with you.  
TT: All alone in that big house.  
TT: What have you been doing this whole time?  
TG: dude  
TG: FUCKING. NOTHING.  
TT: Don’t talk to me.  
TT: Don’t you dare.  
TG: rose fucking come on!  
_this user has blocked your incoming messages._  
TG: fuck REALLY?  
_this user has blocked your incoming messages._  
TG: im coming to you because i need HELP  
_this user has blocked your incoming messages._

A droplet of water spatters across my screen.

“Fuck.” I look up. Clouds have scuttled across the sky, blocking out the sun. They’re thick, and angry, and as I look up, another drop falls and hits me in the forehead.

Wow. It’s raining in LA.

How’s that for pathetic fallacy?

My phone buzzes and my heart leaps. I look down, stomach in my mouth, but it isn’t Rose.

CG: WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO ROSE?  
CG: SHE JUST MESSAGED ME AND TOLD ME THAT SHE’S COMING TO LA TOMORROW AND I SHOULDN’T LET YOU TALK TO ME UNTIL THEN.  
CG: JUST TEN MINUTES AGO WE WERE PUKING WITH WORRY ABOUT YOU! NOW SHE SAYS YOU’RE NO GOOD?  
CG: WHAT THE EVERLOVING SHIT IS GOING ON???

I swallow hard. Fuck. Rose. Coming here. My stomach, still in my mouth, starts to tie itself into pretty little macrame knots, and the rain starts to come down in earnest.

TG: i fucked up  
TG: what else is new  
TG: god karkat  
TG: i fucked up so fucking bad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [tumblr!](http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com/)


	27. Interlude 8: January 1999 // I need you to commit perjury.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

Ten televisions were running b-roll at the same time when the call came.

Dave slowly fed film into the roll, watching each picture pass through. If he made the cut right… there, that would work, right? It would give the whole scene a sort of weird, awkward jumpiness. That would be fun, that would be cool. That would be…

“Yo! Michael!”

He winced, pulling back the scissors, but he’d already nicked the film. Fuck. He was going to have to cut it there, now. Thanks, asshole.

He sat back in the chair, throwing the sewing scissors onto the nearest table. “What?” he called down, a little rougher than he probably should. But hearing that name, the name the state had given him after deciding that ‘Baby Boy Doe’ was never going to get claimed, it just made him itch all over. If no one called him Michael Johnson ever again, it would be way too soon.

“Phone for you. It’s your girlfriend.”

“This late? Definitely a transcontinental booty call, dude!”

Yeah. He wished.

But the promise of Rose on the other end of the line galvanized him to action. He pulled himself up out of the chair and left the b-roll all running and his room looking like the stomach of a beast that eats movies, taking the stairs two at a time all the way down. They creaked and groaned ominously. The house he shared with two people he didn’t give a fuck about was liable to fall around them any minute, but hey -- the rent was cheap.

One of the two was standing by the sink, phone pressed against his ear with his shoulder as he busied himself with dishes. “Yeah,” he was saying. “But I mean, when are you coming down to visit again? We miss you around here, girl…”

The other chortled, turned around, and snapped his friend with a towel.

It was entirely unreasonable for Dave to be offended at their bullshit. His urge to shout _she’s gay, assholes!_ was pretty fucking hypocritical, considering the way Rose’s wide hips, heavy breasts, and glorious thighs sashayed through his dreams.

“Eat shit, dudes,” he just said, as flippantly as he could, as he moved between them. “I’ll take it in the living room.”

They laughed behind him, and he was grateful when he could shut the door against their voices. He picked up the phone by the window. “Hey,” he said.

“Hello, Dave.”

“We love you, Rose!” The obnoxious voice came from both the receiver and the other side of the door.

“Hang up!” Dave called, and they laughed, but after a moment, the receiver clicked and the echo in the line stopped. He sighed with relief.

“ _Charming_ ,” Rose murmured.

“Jesus dick, dude, sorry about those jagoffs.” Dave shook his head as if she could see him, settling into the chair there. He looked outside into the dusty backyard, illuminated by a flickering dusk to dawn light off by the road. Ugh. He should really do something about that big pile of old tires. Even if he couldn’t sell them, just, like… get rid of them, or something. _You shouldn’t live like this,_ Rose always said. He knew she was right.

“It’s fine,” she replied. “I know about unfortunate living companions.”

“They help pay the rent,” Dave said. Despite her attempts at comfort, he felt the need to rationalize why he let such dumb frat bro assholes talk to her. What if she got mad at being jeered by their dumb asses and just stopped calling?

Fuck, he couldn’t take that.

“Hey,” he said, suddenly desperate to change the subject entirely. To remind her that he was worth being around, that he was a good thing in her life, that he listened when she talked. “Hey, I was just working with some footage. You know like how you spent the entire holiday fucking badgering me nonstop to finally show you something? Well, okay, so, let me --”

“I’m happy about that, Dave,” Rose said. Her voice had taken on a gently admonishing tone, and Dave couldn’t help but feel slapped down. “Tell me about that later, all right?”

He swallowed. “L-look --”

“I have a specific purpose in mind for calling, today.” She took a deep breath on the other side of the line. “I need your help, Dave. Desperately.”

“I…” he sat forward in his chair. Her voice was soulful like an old gospel album, so sincere and serious that he wanted to reach a hand through the lines and hug her. “I mean, aw hell, Rose, you know I’ll do just about anything you ask.”

“All right,” she said, sounding relieved. “Okay, Dave. That’s good. I need you to commit perjury.”

Overhead, thunder rolled. Appropriate. Pathetic fallacy. Might make a good shot for a movie. Dave opened his mouth and closed it again. Wrapped the cord around his hand. “Uh,” he said. “What?”

“Exactly what I said,” she replied. And then sighed. “Dave,” she said, as he pulled his legs up onto the chair with him, “I’ve been trying to decide how to approach this topic with you for months, now. In fact, I had quite firmly decided that I was going to go over it with you during your trip to Boston for Christmas. But then, once I saw you, I just wanted you to enjoy the holiday. Sometimes, I feel as if you have so little to look forward to. It felt wrong to spoil it.”

“I have plenty to look forward to,” he said. “Are you talking court of law, like, perjury?”

“Please don’t be upset with me. I haven’t even told you what lies I want you to tell on the stand, yet.”

He actually laughed at that. He reached up and ran a hand through his hair. “Christ, dude. Fuck. Is this real, right now?”

“Yes.”

“What did you _do_?”

“I didn’t do anything. Really, is that the first conclusion you come to? That I’ve broken the law, somehow, and I need your help to extricate me from some deserved fate?”

“Well -- why else would you be?”

“I’m suing someone, Dave.” He didn’t think he’d ever seen her sound so deeply reasonable, so collected. Fucking hell. Rose was suing someone and he was watching rain fall on old fucking tires?

“Oh,” he said, trying to sound like he had his shit together. “Uh. Who -- who are you suing, yo?”

“Two separate entities. The Child Protective Agency of New York, and Brian.”

“I -- wait, your dad?”

“He is not my father.”

In that brief second, the perfect mask over Rose’s voice cracked. And suddenly, Dave heard the emotions that had been whirling just underneath for the entire conversation. Anxiety and fear and rage, wrapped around a core of vulnerability and then swaddled, barely -- _very_ barely -- with a semblance of control.

He thought of her strange quietness on Christmas morning.

Of her, tense on the phone, refusing to say who had called.

Of the stacks of mail she’d snapped at him for jokingly peeking at.

“Rose,” he said. “Are… are you, um… okay?”

“Yes,” she said, firmly. Her mask was back, but now he could hear how unsteady it was. “I’m absolutely fine, Dave. I’m just -- I am -- this is a long time coming, you see? This is a long time coming, and I have spent years working towards it, and I just need it to work out, all right? It needs to -- everything needs to go smoothly. That’s why I need you to testify that I told you Brian raped me.”

The bottom seemed to fall out of the world.

“But…” He swallowed. Hard. “But you didn’t tell me that.”

“Yes, Dave. I’m aware. That’s why it’s perjury.”

“So…”

“So.”

He licked his lips. Closed his eyes tight. Tried not to -- just -- just tried not to. “So you didn’t tell me that, so…”

Silence on the other end of the line.

And then:

“I thought… I thought it would be better.”

“Thought what would be better?”

“If I didn’t tell you.”

“If you didn’t tell me that Brian raped you.”

“Yes.”

“Because --” He swallowed, and found a ragged lump of pain in his throat. Things he’d said over the past decade kept bursting to the forefront of his mind like the fucking Kool-Aid Man. All the times he’d been jealous. An old Apple 2 and velvet posters on her wall. “Tell me that’s because it didn’t happen,” he murmured. Begging.

“Dave,” she said, and he hated himself for how he leaned toward the comforting sweetness of her voice, as if _he_ were the one who needed taking care of. “You would have told me to report it.”

“Yeah!” he cried. “Of _course_ I would have! You should have -- shit, Rose! Shit! Fuck! Is this for real right now? Is this real?”

“Could you please keep it down? The last thing I want is those neanderthals you live with to hear all the details of my life!”

Oh, fucking hell. The very thought of that made him want to throw up. “Okay,” he said. “Sorry. I just -- fuck, Rose. Yeah, you’re right, I fucking would have told you to report it, because it’s just kind of the obvious thing to do when you find out that someone you know is indulging in a little _child rape._ ”

“Is it?” she demanded. “I thought you’d say that, and is it really the thing to do?”

“Um, _yeah_?”

“What if it’s your eighth foster home in six years?” she pressed. “What if, in the last place you lived, they locked you in a closet at night? You know as well as I do that there are no happy endings for kids like us, Dave.”

He’d thought _her_ ending had been happy. Fuck, he’d thought, all these years, that she’d become like a normal kid, complaining about demanding parents who give her nice things and liked having her around.

The things he’d said…

She should fucking hate him.

“Sometimes it happens,” he said, instead of any of that. “Sometimes these things work out. You hear stories. I had that foster mom who put glow-in-the-dark stickers on the ceiling. It could have… it would have been better than that.”

“Would it? And you’re the expert, are you, Dave?” She sighed. “I would have gone just right back into the system. Just another mote floating through the cosmos with nothing tying it to the earth. Well. I’d had enough of that. If I was going to be a mote, I was going to be a mote with a plan. I could have gotten Brian sent to prison, but what good does that do? Revenge is a very romantic notion, but it’s not practical, Dave. I want to be practical.”

“So you’re suing him.”

“I’m suing anyone I can make a case as being responsible. For as much as I can get. And I’m starting now, now that his cheque is cashed on my last tuition payment. I’m not going to be at the mercy of anyone ever again. I’m going out into the world with an MFA and a million dollars and I’m going to do what I want without anyone telling me what I have to do to please them, first. But I’m not going to be able to make a case against anyone if I don’t have a documented outcry witness. I need to have told _someone_ about what happened. So… I need you to lie about it.”

She took a deep, trembling breath.

“I know it’s a great deal to ask, Dave. I’m asking you to break the law, and possibly violate your own conscience. And I can only imagine what you think of me right now. What a soulless, mercenary person I am. And perhaps, after this, you won’t be able to see me the same way, and that would be fine with me. -- no, that’s completely untrue, but I would understand. I realize I have put you in an untenable position, but if you do this and I win these cases, I will pay you one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for --”

“Fuck,” Dave said, all in a rush.

“I…”

“Fuck, Rose. Fuck. Are you -- is this for real, right now? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Dave… please, just let me--”

“You’re trying to offer me money, to help you? Like -- like, are you trying to pay me off right now, or… or, Jesus, what is this?”

“I don’t mean to --”

“Rose, fuck, no, listen to me!”

She went silent.

Lightning flashed across the sky.

“Jesus,” Dave said. His chest ached like he was dying. “Jesus, you just give me a script. You just feed me the lines, dude, and I’ll -- fuck, I’ll say whatever you want. I’ll fuckin’ -- _Jesus_ , Rose, I’ll get up there on that fucking chair and tell them that the sky is pink if that’s what you ask me to do, are you _kidding_ me right now? Anything. Dude. Fucking _anything._ ”

She was so quiet that, for a second, he thought he’d managed to offend her. He grimaced, plotting a course to extricate his foot from his mouth, but Rose began to laugh quietly on the other end of the line.

“Okay,” she said, very quietly. “Okay, Dave. Message received.”

He laughed, too, more out of relief than anything else.

“But,” she said. “I want you to know. If I win these cases, this money is going to give us _both_ the lives we deserve to have.”

“Wait, no way,” Dave began.

“I know you’re too Texan for charity --”

“Hey, fuck off, what the shit is this, now?”

“But I’ll find a way. And the first order of business will be getting that legal name change for you, I swear. I can live with being Susan Smith as long as I can write under whatever name I want, but you? No one is going to call you Michael ever again.”

He didn’t even know _what_ to say. He tried and tried and found nothing that would come out of his mouth. So he sat in silence, listening to Rose breathe on the other side of the line, watching rain fall into the back yard, onto the old tires, turning the dust to mud. Thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, and Dave wished that he could pull her through the phone to sit with him. He couldn’t believe that, while she was there telling him this shit, revealing this absolute _bullshit_ that had happened to her… she was still being the strong one.

“Sorry,” he said, finally.

“Why would you be sorry?”

“I just -- sorry you have to -- I mean, you’ve got me in your life, and I’ve got you, and that doesn’t really fucking seem like a fair goddamn trade, now does it?”

She laughed quietly again, and this time, he almost had to pull the phone away from his ear, because something about that laugh, he could swear, it was almost like she was saying, lips against the receiver: _Dave Strider, I love you._

“It’s a very equitable exchange,” she said. “It’s -- it’s perfect. I wouldn’t trade you for anyone, Dave Strider. I’m glad I found you. I’m glad we found each _other._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr @ [my dumb url!](http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com/) Thank you to all my readers for being so wonderful, supportive, and PATIENT with updates :)


	28. As Soon As The Sun Comes Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

I’m crammed into a big, comfy couch with four other people. We’re cuddled up like pigs in a blanket, arms thrown round one another, thighs pressed up tight, all intermingled and overlapping. I’ve got a pair of gloriously shapely female legs in my lap, the elbow of the guy next to me is all bone, and I swear that’s Rose’s throaty chuckle in my ear.

_This is family,_ I think, inexplicably. _This is what having a family is like. These people are my family._ Because it’s not just a thought, it’s a _feeling_ , and there’s something so simple and complex and _right_ about it that it takes my breath away.

Ten seconds later, I wake up wishing I was dead.

It’s not like it is, sometimes, where you get a sec to bask in the languid wallow of blankets and restfulness before the realization of how fucked everything is crashes down like a piano in a cartoon. No, I’m waking up with that piano already on me, every joint flattened, every bone shattered. There’s no sudden recollection that my life is basically over. That knowledge has kept me tossing and turning all night long.

The lights flicker. I stare up at my canopy. Is the power fluctuating? Empress on the move again? Who cares, man. Who fucking cares. But when they flicker again, I sigh and groan and sit up.

Karkat’s got one hand on the light switch.

I almost just start crying. I really do.

“Hi,” he says, uncharacteristically quiet.

“Hey,” I reply. There’s so much more to say than that, but I don’t know how.

“Are you awake?” he asks.

“Nope. Dead asleep. This is how I snore.”

He snorts and rolls his eyes, but there’s something performative about it. I want to laugh and say something like, yeah, same, me too, Karkat, I know that feel bro. Instead I just stare at him. Studying his long lashes, his round cheeks, the curve of his jaw and how it glides into the hollow of his throat. Those dark eyes, that tousled handsome rat’s nest of hair. I want to memorize it, all of it. Everything about him. I don’t want to forget him. I never want to forget him.

“Well, get your corpulent fucking ass out of bed,” he snaps. “Rose is standing in the foyer and she needs you out there so she can fucking disembowel you, apparently.”

I knew it was coming, but it still rocks me.

I sit there, jaw working silently, doing math in my head. We had our little _conversation_ yesterday, so really, she got here about as fast as she did when I was at the hospital in Ibiza. I flash back to the sterile white lights, the smell of antiseptic, Rose in yoga pants and ponytail staring down at me in my hospital bed while my heart monitor beeped. _”Please,” she’d begged. “Please don’t leave me.”_

And now…

Yeah.

I think about how I felt the night I’d landed myself in that room. Like I was drowning and there was no sign of shore so I might as well just let go. And now, now I think… fuck. I had it easy that night. It hurts a thousand times worse when you’re drowning again but you thought you were getting so close to the shore.

Karkat shoves his hands in his pockets. “She’s so pissed I’m pretty sure she could fucking tear the bannister off the stairs with her bare claws and beat someone to death with it,” he says. “She nearly shot nuclear lasers out of her eyes when I told her I wanted to come back and get you myself. I thought she was going to tackle me and wrestle me down to the ground so that I wouldn’t do just that. Dave, seriously, what the _fuck_ did you do to piss her off this bad?”

God.

Last night, after realizing that no amount of cajoling was going to convince me to actually talk, Karkat had brought me a pile of blankets and sat with me on the couch I’d come to think of as “ours” in the viewing room. He’d leaned his head on my shoulder and I’d sat there staring at the wall as sunset and then twilight and then evening changed the colours around us. I’d listened to him breathing and just wished I could freeze time and cocoon us in that calm before the storm, forever.

“Dude…” I say, but my throat closes up and my chest feels like some giant hand is squeezing it and I can’t swallow or breathe.

Karkat deserves some sort of… something, some raft in this storm I whipped up, some map that will let him decipher the shit he’s caught between, but instead, I think I’m just going to choke to death on shame and spare everyone the misery of dealing with this mess I made.

“Get up.”

I shake my head.

He stares at me flatly, his brows pulling down into a mighty glare. He folds his arms. One finger taps against his elbow. “Get the fuck up,” he repeats. “You two need to just _talk_ about this, and then --”

“There’s no talking,” I say. I raise a shaking hand to run it through my hair. Greasy. Didn’t shower last night, even after having had sex. Bad call. “There’s not gonna be a conversation, Karkat. She isn’t here to talk.”

“Oh, fuck right off. Of course she’s here to talk. What do you think, that she flew _all_ the way across the continent just so that she could shit in your fucking mouth and then immediately go home? What a steaming pile of --”

“She’s _here_ ,” I interrupt, meeting his eyes with a look that’s definitely some kind of pathetic, but I just really need him to stop talking and understand how bad this is, “to take you away.”

Intense eye contact allows me a moment to see Karkat’s eyes go wide before they shutter and he slips into that sullen punk thing he goes for when he’s not in his natural state, the furious, wordvomiting punk. “She can try,” he says, all bluster.

“No, trust me, dude. She’ll succeed.”

He puffs up like he’s about to launch into one of his rants, and I get talking to cut him off.

“Come on, bro, let’s not forget that you’re here illegally, and _she’s_ the one making it happen, and the entire plan where she greases the wheels to get you sorted and shit, that’s all contingent on her cooperation, too! All it takes it one fucking phone call and she gets your sweet ass deported _all_ the way back to -- fuck, not even Spain, right? Back to _Morocco_ , and --”

I meet his eyes, and I clam up immediately. Karkat is slumping, one hand against the wall. His shoulders are limp, his face is pale, and I think he might be about to puke.

Fuck.

I can’t watch him looking like that. “Though -- fuck, Karkat, though it probably won’t be like that, I mean, she’s probably -- she probably won’t send you back there, she’ll probably just, you know, take you to New York, or you know, Canada. Or something. Or --”

He snaps his head up and meets my eyes. His hands curl into fists.

“What did I do?” he blurts, and there’s a high tone of desperation and despair in his voice. “What the hell did I do, Dave? Right before Christmas, Rose and I talked almost every day! She gave me all those gifts! Juliet Harlowe and, and, we were… I thought we were fucking _friends_! And then she stops talking to me, she doesn’t respond to any of my texts, and fucking -- _now_ just out of the wild blue fucking yonder she’s come all the way here to take me away, to send me somewhere, what did I _do_ to her, Dave? I can’t wrap my fucking worthless inadequate brain around how this happened, because one second everything was _good_ and--”

I’m throwing back the covers. My feet are hitting the floor. I’m across the room and wrapping my arms around him.

He stiffens in my arms, and then collapses against me.

“Dude,” I say, burying my face in his hair, “dude, fucking dude, stop it, oh my god, it’s not you, it’s _me_ , oh my god. Is that what you’ve been thinking since -- I told you, I said _I_ fucked everything up, it’s not you, _I’m_ the disaster, it’s _me_ , it’s all _me_ \--”

My voice breaks.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek and close my eyes so tight my face starts hurting. Don’t cry, I tell myself with a ferocity honed over thirty years of this exact shit. Don’t fucking cry. Don’t you dare fucking cry. If I cry, I go out there to Rose with tear tracks on my face and bloodshot eyes and there’s no way I can do that. There’s no way.

Karkat pulls away.

“What did you do?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Picked you up. Took you to a hotel room. Paid you for sex.”

He jerks back like I’ve burned him. There’s a ferocious sort of gleam in his eyes and he launches out a stream of furious sounding Arabic, which is a really furious sounding language to fucking start with, really. “-- and that was three whole _months_ ago now, and _how_ is it any of her business again?” he finishes explosively, in English.

“Rose --” I cut myself off as that feeling of shame threatens to crush me again. “Rose,” I say. “Rose has a… a thing, I -- you’re just a kid --”

“Is this happening right now? Are these words I’m hearing coming out of your fucking gob? I am _not_ a kid.”

“By Rose’s reckoning, and I mean, sex with minors --”

“A minor in _America_ , maybe, and we never had sex! You walked _out_!”

My stomach feels hollow. I swallow hard. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters! How does it not _matter_ , that is the most outrageously unfair thing I’ve ever _heard_!”

“Dude, I appreciate the hearty defense.” I take a step back from him, and it pains me. “Like, I do. I do, I just…” I laugh quietly. Bitterly. Karkat watches me warily, like I might leap forward and attack him. That hurts, too. “She’s right, you know.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, really. She’s right. She’s fucking… god.”

I take another step back.

“I mean.” I feel a floodgate open. Oh, shit. Here it comes. “You say you’re not a kid but you _are_ a kid, you _were_ a kid, you were… and _I_ was… and fuck, dude, _fuck_.” This time, my laughter is kind of borderline hysterical. Maybe I’m headed for a total mental break. Sweet. “You’re fucking -- _still_ a kid, and the shit I let myself think about around you to this _day_ makes me the worst kind of human garbage, so _Jesus_ , while I appreciate it, dude, come on. Come on, don’t defend me. I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve anything.”

Karkat looks up at me. His eyes are big and sincere and honestly it’s all I can do not to cup his cheeks and lean down to kiss him. Why not, right? I’m already in trouble for this shit. Rose is about to call me a pedophile to my face, so fuck, I might as well act like one.

I don’t, though.

“Do you know how much I _hate_ it when you start pontificating on like that? About how awful you are, about how you’re bad and worthless?” Karkat’s voice fills the silence left by my inaction. “Really. I’m actually asking right now. Do you have a single inkling in that rock you call a brain how much it drives me off my last _nut_ when you flap your tongue and that _sewage_ comes out?”

I laugh quietly, shaking my head. “Well,” I say. “I… guess I do now.” I don’t let myself feel that core of warmth that wants to spread through my chest. This will all be gone in half an hour. There’s no use in feeling anything good about it.

Karkat looks away. He can’t meet my eyes, and I don’t blame him, cause I’m getting misty again. Don’t fucking cry, Strider. “Look,” he says, turning roughly away. “Rose is going to be stomping down here coming _after_ us any fucking second, so we _really_ ought to --”

I reach after him without thinking, grabbing his hand. “Don’t go,” I blurt. “Fuck, Karkat, don’t go.”

He pauses.

I swallow.

“She’s going to take you away,” I whisper, voice scraping up my throat. “Can’t we just stay here for a second. Can’t we just roll around in this for just a bit longer, because after this, Rose is never going to let you see me again.”

Karkat looks up at me. He winces, and then, patiently, squeezes my hand before pulling it away. The show of inarguable affection leaves me dazed.

“Like fuck,” he says. “I must have missed the part where Rose gets to tell me what to do.”

He starts off and doesn’t look back.

I should shower. Put some clothes on. Find my aviators. Meet Rose with the full weight of Dave Strider behind me. God knows, things are always easier to deal with when I’ve got _that_ asshole to hide behind.

But Karkat is my lifeline and my lifeboat, and it just doesn’t seem worth it to waste my time with anything else when he’s walking away from me, possibly forever. So instead, barefoot, pyjama-clad, and sleep-tousled, I just trail after him like he’s got me on a lead.

He takes me to Rose.

It’s been so long since I’ve seen her that there’s this strange moment of disconnect when she’s just standing there in my foyer. As it goes, she’d started to become more a cloud of purple text and feelings in my head, and the reminder of her physical form is momentarily startling. Then, all at once, twenty-five odd years of history come tumbling back, and she’s flesh and blood again. She’s well styled, carefully arranged blonde hair and flowing, dramatic black clothes. She’s merlot lipstick, oxblood nails, and powdered skin. She’s my best friend. My constant. My anchor.

She tenses and turns when we enter, and her eyes are so fucking cold my bones hurt.

Her jaw bulges when she looks at me, but it’s Karkat she pins with her basilisk gaze. “I need to speak to Dave alone, please,” she says, every word clipped and sharp and snapping.

“Or, just a counterproposal, maybe _no_?” Karkat shoots back. “Or do you not see how it’s kind of incomprehensible to banish me to the far reaches of this obnoxious monument to self importance when this is actually all just about _me_.”

Rose snaps her gaze to me. My blood runs cold and my knees wobble.

“Rose,” I say, the need to explain myself, to make things right, to _fix this_ welling up in my chest and bursting out my mouth like I’m straight burping desperation.

“I suppose you’ve already spun this, then,” she says. The icy burn of hatred and disgust in her eyes is flaying me alive. “Told him a version of this story where you’re harmless and I’m the force of moral panic come to intrude on your relationship. After all, it’s not like that, right, Dave? Karkat is just special. Really, what’s age but a number? _You_ certainly think he’s mature enough to consent to whatever he wants.”

“I never --”

She holds up a hand and turns away from me. For just a moment, I think I see a wave of pain cross her face. “Don’t tell me otherwise, _please_. I _know_ people like you.”

“People like me,” I repeat, hollowly.

“He hasn’t done anything,” Karkat protests.

Rose grinds her teeth. “Karkat,” she says, very quietly. Someone who didn’t know her well might say she sounded patient. “Could I please implore you to allow me to speak to Dave one on one.”

“No. Do you know why? Because that’s a _stupid_ suggestion. I leave and come back to you digging his eyes out of his skull with a wooden spoon? I don’t think so.”

“Rose,” I say, and I’m really fighting back the urge to get down on my knees in front of her and just _beg_ her to listen to what I’m fucking saying, here. “I swear, I _swear_ , nothing has happened.”

“Not even back in Ibiza, I suppose,” she says, unmoving as a stone.

“He kissed me,” Karkat said. “And then he went and knocked back an entire bottle of pills, so I think we can all take that to mean he felt kind of bad about it!”

“I don’t _care_ how bad he felt about it!” Rose’s voice goes high and then cracks. She snaps her mouth shut and stands there, trembling with rage, taking shuddering breathing through her nose, her eyes glittering with fury and tears.

God.

She really fucking hates me.

I feel my legs start to give out and grab for the closest wall or railing or whatnot. I don’t find anything. I just kind of… slump down onto the ground.

“Dave!” Karkat says, moving to come to my side.

“Don’t touch him,” Rose spits, acid in her tone. Karkat freezes. Rose takes a halting step forward, and I look up at her, and she meets my eyes, and she’s crying.

Fuck, Rose. You make it hard for a guy to keep his own bullshit tears bottled up.

“How could you do this?” The question’s nothing more a harsh whisper, but it’s loud as thunder in my ears.

“Am I invisible? Can nobody hear me? He didn’t do anything!” Karkat says, but Rose keeps looking at me and I keep looking at Rose. She swallows hard. Her next breath shakes.

“I’m fucking trash, Rose,” I say. My voice is soft. I see her flinch when it hits her like a blow. “I always warned you, didn’t I? I’m worthless, pathetic garbage, always fucking up, always doing the wrong thing, always ruining your life.”

“I never believed that,” she says.

“But you do now,” I say.

She folds her lips into a line. A tear tracks down her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

A frustrated growl comes out of her throat and she lifts up clawed hands like she’s going to tear chunks of hair out of her skull. Then, seeming to remember how nice her coiffure looks, she just clenches at the air instead, claws becoming fists and then back in a rhythmic motion.

“I’m sorry, Rose,” I say again.

“Stop it.” She shakes her head. “You don’t get to apologize, not for this. Not for this, Dave. This is too much, don’t you see? You say that you’re sorry, you make it _my_ responsibility to choose whether or not to forgive you? You know I can’t. You _know_ I can’t.”

I close my eyes. My chin hits my chest.

So that’s it, then. That’s it. End of the road. Rose will never forgive me, and so… what else matters, really? Other than this, these two people, what do I have? Half a billion dollars and nothing worth a damn.

It’s over for me, really over, now, and somehow, this feeling of cold, numb peace starts spreading through me. The last time I tried to kill myself -- there was something holding me back. There was Rose. But now, maybe I can just…

“Go to hell,” Karkat says, wolverine-fierce.

I raise my head and open my eyes.

“Do you have any idea how fucked up he was that night? High and miserable and about to fucking kill himself. I saved his life, you know! Not just after he dosed himself, either! I caught his ass when he plummeted off a railing and nearly bashed his thick skull in! He was tweaked out and suicidal and there _I_ was, and -- and I don’t look like this when I’m working, Rose! When I’m working, this shit is fucking irresistible, okay? I’m hot shit!”

“I don’t care --” Rose begins.

Karkat cuts her off at the starting line. “Well, you should! You _should_ care! Do you know how many fucking scumbags I’ve had inside of me? And here’s this -- this one fucking person who couldn’t do it, and you’re supposed to _love_ him and now you’re just going to grind his face into the fucking gravel because he had the audacity to fucking _consider_ it?”

“You have _no_ idea what you’re talking about, Karkat!” Rose cries, starting toward him in a swirl of dark fabric and gauzy lace, and I think that maybe she’s going to attack him or something, but he steps right up to her, all fire and fury, and he’s got his dukes up and his stance squared.

“No, _you_ don’t know what you’re talking about,” Karkat shoots back. “And I’m really fucking angry about it, actually! Because I thought you _got_ it! I thought you understood! I thought you put us together like this because you were the kind of person who saw things that nobody else sees and understands things that don’t make _any_ fucking sense, but it turns out you’re just an idiot!”

“Geez, Karkat,” I murmur, biting back a hollow sort of laugh that comes up from the numb place in my middle. “Go a little easier on her.”

“Fuck off! Jesus! Both of you fuck right off, you anuschafing imbecilic fuckwads!” He pokes Rose hard in the sternum. “Look at you, now, all fucking presumptuous and hoity-toity about what’s good for me! What’s good for me is -- is -- _fuck_! You. Dave. Having -- having a fucking place, having fucking _people_ , you’re going to take all of that away because… because…”

“Because Dave is going to hurt you!” Rose reaches to grab his jabbing hand. She gathers it in both of hers and I look up at them and I know she’s right. I hurt _everyone_. She gazes at him with pleading eyes. “You need to understand that you’re being taken advantage of.”

“Not like you, right?” Karkat says. He wrests his hand from her grip and takes a step back, so that he’s positioned at my side. “I mean, it’s sure not like you realized that I’d do almost anything to get to America! You _definitely_ didn’t leverage a poor ‘kid’ and his fucking dreams for a better goddamn life or whatever to make me agree to this whole arrangement in the first place.”

“I thought --” Rose cuts herself off.

Karkat lays a hand on my shoulder. It’s warm. “Yeah, I know. You thought I was a dealer. Because if I had been, _then_ I wouldn’t be vulnerable or unable to fucking make choices or whatever the fuck you’re saying.”

“That’s not what I meant to -- you’re twisting everything! Karkat! I’m only trying to help you! Please, just come with me for one night. We’ll get a hotel room. We can talk about this. I’ll make you understand --”

Karkat roars. “Look at him! You want us to walk _out_ of here? Do you _want_ him dead?”

I look up. I need to see her face. But I can’t read anything on it as she closes her mouth and doesn’t answer.

“Fuck,” I say. “Fuck, Rose, do you? Because goddamn. Goddamn, dude, I can oblige.”

She closes her eyes tight. She’s gotta say something, say _anything_ , because if she could just be like ‘yes, Dave, I want you dead,’ then everything could just be over. But she keeps her lips pursed and the silence is like a marching band in my ears.

“If you want to pull me out of here,” Karkat says, breaking the cacophonous quiet, “you’re going to have to drag me. You’re going to have to bring the police. You’re going to have to deport me. Because I -- I won’t leave him all alone like this, I _can’t_ , and I don’t think you can, either.”

I swear to god, I feel something crack inside of me. Physical, real, visceral. And then the numbness starts to fade. I want to reach up. Cover Karkat’s hand with my own. He cares if I live or die. I’m not all alone in the world.

I look at Rose.

“Rose, please,” I say. Whimper, almost. “I don’t need you to forgive me, I don’t need you to get it. You can think the worst, I don’t care, I just can’t, you can’t hate me, Rose, please don’t hate me, tell me you don’t want me dead.”

She doesn’t look away from Karkat. She’s shaking from head to toe.

“Please, just come with me, Karkat,” she begs.

“Fuck you,” he says.

Her shoulders shake, a sob cracks out of her throat, and then she buries her face in her hands and screams into them. It’s like a fucking dying animal and I sway in place. Karkat’s hand squeezes around my shoulder. I can’t tell if he’s trying to be comforting, or just using me to steady himself.

“Rose,” I say.

“Stop it,” she sobs. “Stop it, just stop it, I can’t _do_ this, why won’t either of you just -- why can’t you just _listen_ , and --”

All at once, she’s moving. I flinch and try to gain my feet, but she’s headed the opposite way, toward the door. She flings it open and whirls around in a flourish of cloth, but now her face is red and tear-streaked and her hair is mussed and she doesn’t look much like the legendary fantasist Rose Lalonde at all. “Why are you doing this to me?” she demands. “Do you even understand everything at stake right now? The world needs you, _I need you_ , and you do this? You do this. You do the one thing, the _one_ thing that you know I can’t ever -- _damn_ you!” The last, she shouts so loud the chandelier above vibrates, and then she slams the door and is just gone.

“Fuck,” Karkat says.

I nod.

“What if she’s going to get immigration?” he asks. “Should we go somewhere? Should we hide? Should we --”

“I don’t think she’s --” I swallow hard. “Fuck, I don’t know what she’s doing, dude, but I don’t think… I don’t think she’s going to call ICE on you. I’m not sure even she knows, right now, I…” I shake my head. I stare down at the marble floor. “She’s right.”

“She’s not.”

“Everything she says, you know, she’s fucking --”

“You never touched me.”

“But I _want_ to!”

I look up at him. He stares down at me, wide-eyed, and I try to force words past the fucking mountain in my throat. “I think about you all the time, I think about what it would be like. I fantasize, I imagine -- god, Karkat, I’m at least half in love with you and I don’t know what to do because you’re _seventeen._ ”

For a second, I see something unguarded and deeply vulnerable on his face. It’s like he’s weighing everything I’d just said and trying to take its measure, and I can’t even look into his eyes without falling through galaxies of space.

Then he pats my shoulder and steps away.

“Yeah, well,” he says. “Maybe, with you and me, normal rules don’t apply.”

“No, fuck, fuck that, don’t say that.” I try not to think about all the layers to what he just said because if I do I’m going to just get wedged between them and die. “They fucking apply, dude, they _have_ to apply. Whatever --” Fuck, I can’t say that. “This shit, this bullshit, the way I --” Can’t say that, either.

I take a deep breath.

Karkat gets there before me.

“I have feelings for you, you know,” he says, and knocks the wind out of me. “Maybe we should actually talk about that.”

Yeah.

Maybe we should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr!


	29. I Cut Them All Loose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

I take a deep breath.

I climb to my feet, my legs shaking.

I shake my head.

“Nope,” I say, firmly.

“What do you mean, ‘nope?’”

“Nope,” I repeat. “We definitely fucking shouldn’t talk about _dick_.”

I turn and walk away from him, as fast as I can, heading nowhere into the bowels of the goddamn Palace of Love.

I barely see where I’m going, because my head is spinning. It’s like a drunken fucking evil kaleidoscope up there, a carousel of bullshit, the centrifuge from hell. Karkat and Rose are swirling around each other, all their words and all my feelings about them both, and it’s guilt and hate and love and confusion and somehow, somehow I have to just get away.

But fuck if he doesn’t follow me.

“Fuck that!” he says, hot on my heels. “Stop it, don’t do that, don’t just walk away from me! You can’t just _do_ that!”

“Sorry,” I mumble, pushing open a set of glass doors, walking underneath the scintillating LEDs of the indoor garden styled to look like a forest. The air smells loamy and earthy and real. That’s what I need. I need to be outside. I need to breathe.

_You don’t get to apologize. Not for this, Dave._

_If you want to pull me out of here, you’re going to have to drag me._

I can’t breathe.

_How could you do this?_

_I have feelings for you, you know._

I can’t fucking breathe,

I burst out into the watery light of morning. The sun is just rising over the hills. Everything is pink and grey and blue. The air is fresh, but I still feel constrained, like there’s a marble bust sitting on my chest, glaring down at me, eyes burning inside its stone face.

“Dave,” Karkat says. “Dave, can you slow down for one blistering fuck and _talk_ to me?”

“Nah,” I say. I try to sound off the cuff and uncaring but in reality I barely manage to get the words out. I’m constrained, I’m suffocating. I start unbuttoning my pyjama top. Fuck, I need to… I need to…

“What are you doing?” Karkat demands. I shrug off the top and strip out of my pants and then my boxer-briefs, leaving a trail of fabric on the lawn behind me. Stripped of all my worldly accoutrements, I should feel better, I should feel _freer_ , but it’s not doing shit. The patio under my feet turns to grass, and then turns back to patio. “Jesus, Dave, what the fuck are you doing? Put your _fucking_ clothes back on, what if there are some telescopic lens photographers trying to get an eyeful?”

“Let them,” I say, stepping off the edge of the patio and into the sun-warmed water of the pool.

I go under.

Chlorine fills my mouth, my nose. I breathe deep, water filling my throat and my stomach and my lungs, and weirdly, it feels more purifying than air. My heart begins to pound, my lungs burn, my head swelling. My knees hit the bottom of the pool. My hair floats around me like algae. My arms and my dick hover weightlessly. Gravity is exhausting. Breathing is exhausting. This is good. This is light. I feel light.

A splash disrupts the stillness of the water, and arms wrap around me, hauling me up to the surface. We break and my traitorous lungs start gasping for air, coughing and spitting up chlorinated water.

“What the fuck are you _doing_?” Karkat rails against my ear, loud enough to split my fucking eardrums open. “What the fuck? What the _fuck_ , Dave?”

I sputter and cough and vomit and he swims us back up the sloping bottom until we’re in waters so shallow that even I couldn’t manage to drown in it. I’m still struggling for air, on my hands and knees, the gritty bottom of the pool digging into my knees and my palms. Karkat is getting up on his knees, shouting angry nonsense, pounding me on the back. I feel a couple hundred gallons of water shoot up out of me. Gross. Come on, y’all, we swim in this water.

“Fuck you,” Karkat is screaming, “fuck you, fuck you, _fuck you._ What is this, what are you doing, _why are you doing this to me?_ Why are you two ruining e-everything, can’t you see how fucking selfish you’re being, what about me, Dave fucking Strider, what about _me_?”

He tackles me all at once, and we go rolling backwards through the shallow water. He’s pounding at my chest with two balled fists, he’s glaring down at me with eyes glowing red and yellow, he’s got teeth bared and I’ve been here before, I think.

I catch one of his fists on instinct.

We stare at each other. He’s shivering with emotion. I’m shuddering from emotional breakdown.

“How long am I going to be stuck doing this?” he hisses at me, but it’s not so much angry as anguished. “You’re good and then you’re bad again, you keep turning a corner and then falling off a cliff and you keep dragging me with you! How many times do I have to watch you… how many times are you going to make me --”

He balls his fists up, grabs two fistfuls of my hair, and kisses me.

And fuck me, but I kiss back.

I kiss him like he’s oxygen and I’m still under the water. I kiss him like he’s a port in a storm. I kiss him like he’s a glass of cool, sweet water in the desert.

And then I pull away, roughly, bucking him off of me and rolling onto my side. I wrap my arms around my middle. “Fuck,” I grit out. My voice sounds like I’ve been gargling glass and gravel. “Fuck, no, no, this is why we can’t talk about this! Fuck. Fuck, _shit_ , you open that door and I walk right through it and I can’t, I fucking, I can’t, I won’t, I”

Doesn’t he get it? This is the one moral event horizon I haven’t crossed, and if I do it, if I just -- if I give in to this, if I make excuses to myself, if I rationalize this, if I let myself kiss him and love him and fuck him and do all the shit I want to do so fucking bad, if I, if I, if I, if I

Black hole, fam.

“Stop it!” Karkat is yelling, straddling my fetal position body and leveraging another blow at my shoulder. It’s hard enough that it might leave a bruise. “Will you just stop rambling to yourself for two fuckdamned seconds and actually talk to me? Just _talk_ to me!”

I sit up and roll, pushing him off of me. He splashes into the shallow water of the pool. He’s still all dressed in jeans and hoodie and he’s soaked, he looks miserable, he looks like a kitten someone fished out of filter.

He looks so fucking young.

And I want him, all of him, so badly.

“I can’t keep saving you,” he says. Begs. His eyes are huge, watery. “I think you’re better and then you do something so fucking stupid, I can’t keep doing this.”

“Maybe you should stop,” I suggest, still hoarse.

His face scrunches up and he shakes for just a second before he tackles me again.

I go down, flat on my back, the water just barely not going over my head. He’s straddling my waist, glaring down at me like a thunderhead, and I can feel his wet jeans on my thighs.

“I hate you so much,” he shouts into my face. “I hate _both_ of you! You’re both so impressed with yourselves! So worried about being good and right and not taking advantage of me, and here you both are ripping me apart! What -- what do you think -- _fuck_ you! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck _this_! I was perfectly okay back in Ibiza, you know, I was _fine_! I didn’t need this! I didn’t need you! I was doing _just fine_ on my own without anyone taking _care_ of me, pretending to give a shit whether I live or die, acting like they _love_ me! Sure, you care about me until you don’t. Until some, some stupid idea of what _should_ or _shouldn’t_ takes it all away from me, and. And.” He gets right up in my face. “I _care_ about you.”

“Stop,” I plead.

“No, shut up. Not like that. Well, no, _yes_ like that, but not like… not _just_ like that, not --” He buries both hands in his hair like he’s trying to pull it out from the roots. “You’re both so caught up in your stupid moral high ground. You’re too busy thinking about me to think about me! God! Pull yourselves out of your fucking sphincters for two _fucking_ seconds and actually -- _think_ about this! Think about _me_!”

“Karkat,” I say. “Dude. I’m thinking about you, believe me.”

“Yeah, right. Eat me.” He slumps. He shakes his head. “Fucking -- eat my entire ass, fuckwad. Liar. Bullshit. You sure were just thinking of me two seconds ago when you -- what even was that? What were you even thinking?”

“I pretty much wasn’t.” I’m still not, really.

“This is what I’m talking about. I’m too much the kid for you to talk to me, be honest with me, admit you have feelings for me, but suddenly when you need someone to pull you back from the brink of death for the third _fucking_ time, oh, _now_ I’m grown up! I’m sure as shit responsible enough to keep saving your _stupid_ life, but _fuck_ having a straight, forthright goddamn _conversation_ with me, huh?”

I can’t tell if I’m completely losing a hold on reality, or if he’s making a lot of sense. Both, probably. Both sounds right.

Like I’m trying to sneak out of my room in the middle of the night, I try to ease myself back into the pitiless embrace of real life.

It’s a doozy.

My heart contracts and I gasp for air, unable to breathe all over again. “Fuck. Fuck. Rose is never gonna talk to me again.” It’s not what I should be saying, or even something that I planned to say, but I swear to god, I can hear my own soul shattering.

“That’s her problem.”

“You don’t get it.” I try to push him off me, because I’m naked and we’re in the pool and the whole fucking tableau is just utterly ridiculous. But I’m feeble in my heartbreak and, pathetically, I can’t leverage a skinny kid off me. “Rose and me, we’re… Rose is, Rose is my fucking _tether_ , dude. Rose keeps me on earth. Rose keeps me from thinking the world and me are both just insane. I can’t… I can’t do it without her.”

“Do what?”

“ _Anything_.”

Karkat folds his arms. His bangs are almost covering his eyes, dripping water down onto his dark face, but I can see a glint of fire there. “Bullshit,” he snaps.

“Nope.”

“ _Bullshit_ ,” he repeats.

“You don’t get it,” I repeat, trying to make him understand just how badly I’ve fucked up, just how impossible this situation is. “Rose keeps me… Rose is what makes it so that…” I try to conceptualize what it is that Rose is tied to, the ball of _necessity_ that her presence in my life represents. “She gives shit meaning. I’m not the kind of person who can be alone.”

“You’re not alone. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, not unless she physically drags me out. I care about you, Dave.”

“You’ve got to stop,” I beg, pushing at him again. He doesn’t budge.

“ _You_ stop, shitbreath! Get off your hysterical bucking hoofbeast and listen to what someone is fucking saying for once in your life!”

I snort. Then cough, chlorine heavy on my breath. “Hoofbeast,” I repeat.

“Wh -- I -- you know what I mean! A horse, an animal with hooves, I -- don’t get off topic! Focus!” He snaps in front of my eyes, twice, like he’s trying to get the attention of a misbehaving student.

I look up at him. “Okay, okay. I’m listening.”

He sits back on my hips, slumping a little. “Are you?” he asks sullenly.

Am I? Maybe. I don’t know. “Sure,” I say.

“Will you just talk to me? Be honest with me?”

I swallow hard. God. “Sure,” I say again.

I force myself to sit up, and this time my body fully responds to commands. I shove Karkat out of my lap, because damn, he’s close as hell and I just want to hold him, kiss him, find comfort in him, and I can’t do any of that. He sloshes into the water, scowling as he gains his feet and looks down at his soaked clothes.

“Ugh,” he says, finally seeming to notice his drowned-rat status.

“Pretty bad, yo,” I agree.

Grimacing like he’s about to grab a fistful of slugs, Karkat crosses his arms and lifts his hoodie up over his head. His shirt underneath pulls up, revealing his flat stomach and the outline of a few ribs. I look away. Nope. Nope nope nope.

_Say you don’t want me dead,_ I’d begged her, and she hadn’t been able to give me even that much.

I put my face in my hands. I shudder and my shoulders shake. “God, fuck, _fucking_ , fuck, _fuck_. She’s never going to forgive me, she is _never_ going to get over this. It’s gone, it’s broken, whatever this magical fucking bizarre thing between her and I is it’s _over_ and, fuck, Karkat. She’s been my whole life. For as long as I can remember, she’s been the only thing that makes anything feel real.” My voice breaks and I lose it. I fucking lose it.

Karkat’s arms are around me. I’m howling like a fucking baby. Wind blows down off the mountains and raises goosebumps on us both. Karkat’s rocking me gently, I’m clutching to him, weeping. Rose, Rose, oh god, Rose. I’m sorry, Rose, I’m so fucking sorry. But try as I might, I can’t trace back to one moment where anything could have gone differently.

I really am trash.

Karkat’s faintly murmuring in arabic, right into my ear. It’s soothing, almost like the churring of an insect. It tugs at little bits of me, plucks strings at the back of my brain. It’s like hearing something familiar and not being able to place it. I can’t pull apart the specific thread, but the experience is genuinely soothing despite it. I find myself being pulled down, back to earth. My uncontrolled sobbing slows. My breath steadies. My heart stops blasting off at a million miles a minute.

“Are you okay?” Karkat asks.

“This is so fucked up,” I reply.

“Sorry,” he says.

“It’s not you,” I say, and then I laugh. I cough. Still tastes a bit like chlorine. Wow, I sure did try to breath in pool water. IDK what Rose’s problem is, really, anyone should be lucky to have this well put together human in their life. “Okay, it’s partly you. Mostly me, though.”

“Dave…”

He pulls away. Sits back in the pool. I try not to look at how the t-shirt he was wearing under his hoodie clings to him, but I can’t not. God. Fuck it. Let’s lean into this. I’m disgusting, I should just grow an unsettling mustache and embrace it.

“Dave, I really have feelings for you,” he says. “And please don’t tell me to shut up. I’m so tired of everyone acting like I don’t have any say over my own life.”

“Dude, nobody’s saying that.”

“Fuck off, _everybody’s_ saying that.”

“It’s not about you.” I try to put it into words, try to frame it in a way he’ll _get_. “It’s about me. I get that you -- I mean, who hasn’t had a crush on someone way older than them?”

“Oh my god, that’s not what this is!”

I ignore him, push on. “So you -- like me, or whatever, sure, okay, you’re allowed. But _I’m_ not allowed. I can’t like you back. This shit I feel makes me _fucked up_ , okay?”

“No, not okay. I mean, yes. You’re fucked up. You’re _fucked_ up. You’re basically a human car wreck. _After_ the jaws of life.”

“Okay, cool, thanks.”

“So why does you being into me become the fucking camel-killer?”

So many reasons. And it’s impossible to explain it to him, to make him get it, because fuck, dude, I remember being seventeen. I remember thinking I was grown up, that I had it all figured out. This entire conversation is a bad idea.

But Rose is gone.

(my heart pulses with the pain of an old bruise)

Who the fuck else am I going to untangle this fuck-up with?

“I’m fucked up,” I repeat. “But. But I’m not sure I’ve ever been evil. Bad. Really bad. I’ve done shit I’m not proud of, but I -- I’ve always just… the person I’ve hurt the most is me. I’m my favourite punching bag. This is something else. This is me getting my bullshit all over somebody who isn’t me.”

“Aren’t you listening? I’m -- I’m kind of crazy about you, Dave. I am. You’re such a frustrating infuriating _baby_ most of the time, and I don’t even know _why_ I care so much, but I do! You’re not _hurting_ anyone by caring about me. I’m -- I’m kind of pissed that you think you are, because nobody has ever -- nobody, in my life, has… and now, you’re saying, you’re telling me that you caring whether I live or die is the thing that makes you _evil_ \--”

“That’s not what I’m saying!” I explode, and I just need him to get it, to understand, that all my better judgement just evaporates. “The fact that I would kill a man to suck your _dick_ is what makes it evil!”

He sits back. His eyes are a bit wide, now. “Oh,” he says.

“Yeah, you’re right, fucking ‘oh.’”

“No, but that’s not… new,” he says. He sounds different. Not angry anymore, not accusatory, but uncertain. As if he’s trying to feel something out using only his tongue. Don’t think about his tongue. Using only his words. Better. “The very first time we met, you picked me up. I’ve known you’ve wanted to fuck me this whole time.”

“Jesus.” My eyes slide off of him. I really wish my brain would stop playing out scenarios where we get our bang on in the shallow pool water. Fuck.

“You haven’t, though.”

“Thought about it,” I murmur, staring at the water lapping up against one of the filters.

“Well, me too,” he says.

“Fuck, don’t.”

“Not at first. At first, I thought you were exactly what you _think_ you are, and I didn’t want shit to do with it. I wanted you to be okay, I wanted you to get better. But the rest of it? Fuck that. I thought you were gross, like some… flea-infested stray that had followed me home, or something. Only then, it was like, you aren’t what you seem like, you aren’t who you pretend to be. You _aren’t_ the guy who picked me up.”

“What am I, then?” I murmur.

“I don’t know.”

“Cool.”

We sit in silence. I don’t know what to say. When I think about it, I’m not sure either of us has actually _said_ much of anything, just a bunch of words excitedly varnishing a turd and then doing a hat dance around it.

“Can we please get out of this stupid pool?” Karkat asks eventually. “I’m freezing and soaked and I really want to get changed and _you’re_ disgusting! You need a shower! You needed one _yesterday_!”

I try to imagine my life continuing on from here. What the fuck does that even look like? Karkat is into me. He’s living in my house. I’ve torched my career. I don’t have any intention of making movies again. Rose is done with me, forever, only she’s foreseen the two of us standing against the _actual_ fucking alien invasion currently taking place here, in LA, ground zero for the unavoidable goddamn apocalypse.

Fucking hell.

“Okay, sure,” I mutter. “You’re right, anyway. My hair is disgusting.”

So that’s how I end up standing alone in my shower, staring at the wall, not cleaning my hair, not soaping my body, not doing much of anything. Just floating. Thinking. Trying to figure out where I go from here. I feel like someone just dumped all the pieces to a two thousand piece puzzle in front of me, and it’s one of those bullshit ones, too, where it’s all almost one fucking colour or whatever. Fix this, they say, walking off. That’s your fucking life, bro, you’d better figure out how to fix it.

Sure. Why not. I’m some kind of miracle worker, right?

The water runs warm, then lukewarm, then straight up cold, and I don’t get out. Karkat comes in, asks if I’m okay. I mutter something. He refuses to leave and sits on the toilet. When I peek out from behind the curtain, he looks snug as a bug in fresh clothes and blow dryed hair. I want to say something to him, but I don’t know what I possibly could. Anything that comes to mind is either too much in one direction or the other.

What I should say is:

_Hey, I’ll find someplace for you to stay, but it can’t be here, because I don’t trust myself with you. There was some plausible deniability before, but not anymore. I’m not trying to get you out of my life, just out of arm’s length, you know?_

I think of him facing down Rose.

He’d never leave. That’s what I tell myself, despite knowing that I could never send him away to begin with.

Fine fucking mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can follow me on [tumblr!](https://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com/)


	30. And Work's My Excuse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

Time passes.

The water keeps pounding on my back, numbing my skin with icy needles as I stare at the wall. If I strain my ears, I can hear Karkat breathing on the other side of the curtain. I close my eyes, blocking out everything else, and zero in on that sound. Inhale and exhale, over and over, syncopating into my heartbeat. I have this sense that he’s always about to inhale sharply and then say something, say anything. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t move to leave or even so much as shift his weight, and I don’t either.

I think we both know that this is a moment. This shower has become my shitty garbage cocoon, and I either break out and start my life as a beautiful trash butterfly or die in here like a pathetic trash worm. The minute I get out and wrap myself in a towel, I’m deciding that we’re doing this, we’re soldiering on out into whatever future exists for me.

I don’t know how much actual time passes, but I feel like it’s a new epoch when I slowly peel my eyes open. I open my mouth, close it, and then open again.

“Jesus, I’m an asshole,” I say. My voice is hoarse from disuse.

I see the outline of Karkat sitting on the toilet like it’s a waiting room chair jolt.

“Here California is in its state of permanent drought and I’m using up all the goddamn water.” It’s the kind of offhand, self-disparaging comment I’d usually pop off with a smirk and in my most exaggerated drawl, but my patience for performance is at full on zero, and it just sounds kind of conversational.

“Yeah,” Karkat says, and then, after a moment, “but this isn’t really new for you, asshat. You’ve got, like, seventeen pools and a fuckload of landscaping.” It’s the kind of thing _he’d_ usually say with that scratchy furious vigor that he always seems able to muster, but for once, he’s sounding pretty casual, too.

“Damn, that’s a good point,” I say. “Fucking… occupy Dave Strider, yo. I’m doing global warming all by myself. Real one percent douchebag, over here.”

“Fuck, I hope you don’t think I’m going to disagree.”

“Nah. I wouldn’t do that to you, dude. Never force a bro to lie to your face, I always say.”

“Fuck off, as if I would. I just don’t want to tear one off your grizzled old hide when you’re already so fucking fragile.”

I smile faintly. Reach out. Put a hand on the tap.

“So…”

Silence on the other side of the curtain. Freezing water cascades over me, and I see Karkat’s outline shift ever so slightly.

I sigh.

“Guess I should probably turn this off and get out, maybe,” I say. The conversational tone is gone, now. I sound like I’m glumly about to head into a fucking dragon’s den. “You know. If I don’t want to help Betty Crocker with her whole help us destroy ourselves via greenhouse gases thing.”

“... yeah,” Karkat agrees. Very fucking quietly, like he’s scared of me bolting. “You know. For the planet, I guess.”

I breathe deep, and I turn off the tap.

The water slows to a very anticlimactic trickle. Freezing drops hit the back of my neck as I press my forehead against the wall, eyes closed, just breathing. I shiver and clench my teeth before I even realize it.

For the first time all day, I actually feel the cold.

I’m taking it as a sign.

I throw back the curtain and stand before Karkat in the altogether, not really caring. He saw it all before.

“Okay,” I say. “I’m getting out.”

He looks up and I swear to god -- he blushes. Which makes me suddenly actually care about being six feet one sixty pounds of exposed lily white flesh, which is probably a good thing? Just. You know. For heading forward stuff.

He jumps to his feet and darts off, but before I even have a second to start freaking out about it, he’s back with a handful of fluffy red towels which he throws at me with both arms, like he’s attacking a volleyball. I catch them, wrapping them around me, hiding my extremely shriveled thunder. I’m enough of a fucking prick to be worried that he thinks that’s normal size. Did he get an eyeful earlier, back when I was trying to turn all piscatorial? Fuck, I hope so. He needs to know I’m packing at least average down there, fuck.

Shut up, Dave.

Okay.

“What time is it?” I ask, rubbing the towel through my hair. I didn’t shampoo or anything, but the hours of water beating down on me did _something_ to deal with the situation, at least, which is good. It wasn’t really a get-clean sort of shower, anyway, no matter what Karkat’s excuse for getting me in there initially was.

He fishes his iPhone out of his jeans pocket. “Nine,” he says.

“Shit,” I say. “Okay. Better than I thought. You want to, uh, fuck, I don’t really want to leave the house, but we can order some lunch in or something?”

“Lunch?” Karkat squint up at me, and then snorts and shakes his head. “No, dickweed, I mean it’s twenty-one. You know. PM. It’s night-time.”

Jesus.

I take a second with that one, putting out a hand to steady myself on the wall. Good fucking shit, dude, it couldn’t have been more than seven in the morning when I took my ill-fated plunge. Christ. Fuck. Okay. The world reorients slightly with this new knowledge, and I’m suddenly aware that I’m starving, that I’m exhausted, that I’m wrinkled from head to toe like a fucking ninety-year-old goddamn man, and that no police, immigration, or any other authority agents came to haul Karkat out of my house.

I swallow hard. I want to ask -- _do you have my phone?_ I want to check it, see if there’s any purple text, and missed calls, any sign at all that Rose wants anything to do with me. I want to ask so bad it physically hurts, clawing around in my middle like there’s a cage full of starving goddamn rats in there.

But

No.

I pulled back the shower curtain, see. And it -- it was like I said, like I _knew_. It was a decision that, Rose or no Rose, I’m going to keep going, so I’m not going to make the first thing my starving, pruny, tired ass does checking to see if she sent me a text.

“I’m hungry,” I say. I sound _pathetic._

But Karkat just nods and shoves his phone back into his pocket. “I ordered pizza a few hours ago. It should be on the front porch. It’s probably cold by now.”

He knows I like cold pizza. He’s just saying it to say it.

I follow after him, one towel around my waist and another draped over my shoulders, from the bathroom to the door and then to the kitchen with the boxes of pizza held before him. I’m leaving puddles as I go and I should probably put some clothes on, honestly, fuck, dude, but I just don’t want to leave his side. I’m like the world’s lewdest dog. Well, that’s a lie, I mean, dogs lick their own balls pretty much 24/7 and I’m not licking my balls. So actually pretty wholesome as far as dogs who actually have balls to lick go.

Karkat drops the pizzas on the table and throws a box open. He got anchovies. Great. I need to communicate to him that I don’t actually like them and was honestly just trying to troll that first time. God. Backfired.

He puts a few pieces on a plate. Slides it over to me.

“What are we going to do?” he asks quietly, before I can pick a slice up and eat it.

Immediately: snakes in my belly.

I swallow.

“I can’t just _not_ ask,” he continues. I nod silently. “I -- Jesus, if I _could_ not ask, I would do that, because it would be -- it would be a whole fucking lot easier! But I need to, _we_ need to! You can’t keep just -- argh!” He runs both hands through his artfully tousled hair.

I want to say something, but my words are stuck in my throat again.

He drops his hands to the table.

“We said a lot of shit,” he says. “At the pool.”

“Fuck. Yeah. We did.” I can’t even remember all of it, but fuck, dude, I can remember enough to know that we laid out pretty much all the cards we had on the table. There’s no unspoken bullshit between us anymore, and if I let myself, if I’m weak and I _allow_ it, I can instantly get high on the memory of his lips and tongue colliding with mine.

“Well, I’m not apologizing!” he says, puffing up like he thinks I’m going to fight him on it. “It’s better! Let me tell you, Dave, I’m fucking _done_ with just not saying things, it’s stupid, I _hate_ it. I’m glad things are said! I wouldn’t walk backwards on it if I could climb right the fuck up time’s anus and twist its heartless second hand backwards fucking by _hand_ , okay?”

“Shit, yeah, okay,” I say, because he’s so worked up at this point he looks like he’s about to build a platform out of this point and run for office on it. “Yeah. Okay. Fine.”

My agreeing with him rather than fighting pops him like a balloon, and he deflates almost comically back down into the massive folds of his oversized black hoodie. He puts some pizza on a plate for himself and takes a bite.

I still don’t. Pizza is in limbo. _Everything_ is in limbo, waiting for whatever one of us loses at chicken to talk.

He looks up at me, finally. His gigantic brown eyes are like a goddamn puppy’s as he gazes into me searchingly. “You do want me,” he says, finally, only instead of saying it like an accusation, like I deserve, it’s more of a question. Like, he’s looking for confirmation, and hoping against hope that he’ll get it.

“I mean, fuck,” I say, my eyes sliding off his, because that kind of eye contact is basically worse than having _needles_ jabbed into my retinas. “Obviously.”

“Not just --”

“No, not just. But, you know, definitely, hardcore, bigtime _including_ , and I can’t stress enough, dude, that I -- dude. Karkat. Dude. I just…” I swallow hard. Real, real hard. And it hurts like hell, getting stuck, reminding me of the way the fistful of pills had felt back in the hotel in Ibiza, months ago. “I can’t go there. I can’t. I can’t.”

From the corner of my eye, I see Karkat’s hands curl into fists on the table. “Why does it get to be all your decision?” he asks, frustration clear in the growl of his voice. “Does what I want even matter?”

“Of course it does. But…” I bring up my hands to press the heels against my eye sockets. The pressure feels good. Grounding. This conversation is a fucking floor-is-lava situation in the most extreme way, but I don’t have the urge to go all aquatic about it. I try not to think that thought lurking just below the surface. _Sure, for now. And how long does sanity last, this time?_

I go silent, longing with all my fucking being for Karkat to fill in the dead air I leave open for him and just magically solve everything, but he doesn’t, which is fair.

I’m the fucking adult here.

I breathe out.

Yeah.

That’s what it comes back to, isn’t it?

I’m the fucking adult, here.

“Fam,” I say, and if that isn’t just the perfect word to start sorting your shit out with, what is, really? “You’ve been through some darkass shit and I don’t doubt it for a second. So, yeah, for what it’s worth, I think you’re capable of making pretty much any decision you have to. God knows, when I was your age, I’d been pretty much taking care of myself for years, and my sad fucking story is a Norman goddamn Rockwell painting compared to _your_ shit. So, who the fuck am I to say whether or not you’re fucking mature enough or whatever to date some gross thirty-something dude who wants to hit it? Fucking nobody, that’s who. I can’t speak for you and honestly, you’re right -- Rose and I are both being some major kind of asshole by saying that we _can_.”

I sense Karkat getting ready to do _something_ , and fuck if I’m going to be able to pull back from the precipice if manages to do it, so I stand up from the table and start pacing, talking faster and faster to beat him to whatever conclusion we’re hurtling towards here.

“So let me be clear -- I’m not talking about you, okay. I’m not talking about what you’re capable of and what you’re able to consent to and -- just take it totally off the table? Okay? Just take it right off and let’s look at this differently, let’s look at this as _me_ , as _my_ thing, as _Dave_ , here, Dave being the kind of enormous asshole he always is, and Dave needs to -- to be -- to just -- pull his life b-back f-from the kind of fucking c-cliff --”

Jesus. Pull it together. I blink away tears. Grit my teeth. Push forward.

“I can’t lose you,” I say. “I don’t know what the fuck the connection between us means, or even _is_ , but it boils down to…”

I look right at him.

“I love you,” I say.

His lips part into an o.

“I mean that -- I mean that in a fucking -- whole amazing orchestra of different ways, right, I don’t mean it just -- just like -- but again, including, dude, including, and what that means is that this situation is like an unsolvable fucking riddle! But you hauled me up out of the pool, which took away the escape clause of having to solve it, so here we go. Here’s where we are.

“I can’t lose you. Not if I want to keep living. And I’m going to just be honest, here, and admit that I’m not sure that I do, or even that I think I _should_ , but I’m willing to admit that it’s a huge fucking bummer for you if I die, so.”

Karkat closes his eyes tightly, and I can absolutely not look at the expression on his face, gratitude and pain and relief and --

Yeah. No.

“So,” I repeat. “For now, dude, and I know this isn’t the nice solution that you want, but for _now_ , fuck, for now it’s just going to have to be… this, okay? Okay? You, living here, taking care of me, and that’s not a fucking equitable situation, I know it’s not, I know it’s some level of hypocritical to say that you can’t get what you want from me but please, continue babysitting me through life every minute of every fucking day, but it’s how it has to be, because I don’t want to be evil, Karkat. I don’t want to be evil. And whether it’s reasonable or not, I need to… I don’t know. This is it. This is my line in the sand. It would be so easy to just cross it, but if I do…”

I stop talking. If I say anything else, I’m going to lose it, just start crying again. I can’t. I’m over it. I’m over crying, and wallowing, and now I just want to… move. Forward, onward, _somewhere_.

The long silence is so empty and so interminable that it could absolutely fucking eat a guy alive, but eventually, _eventually_ , Karkat sighs. It’s the most overdramatic, theatrical fucking sigh I’ve ever heard, and I’ve known Rose since we were, like, six, so that’s pretty impressive. He crosses his arms and rolls his eyes, and he says,

“Fine.”

Like it’s just nothing and he’s agreeing, under duress, to take out the trash.

“But -- because it’s not _fucking_ fair that you get to say it and I don’t -- I’m just going to lay it down here that I love you, too, okay?”

Jesus.

“Okay,” I say, strangled and hating myself and guilty and ascending to heaven on angel wings all at the same time.

And just like that, there’s nothing left for me to say or do that sounds sane and not like I’m digging myself a grave to lay down and die in, so I just kind of awkwardly shuffle back to my seat, sit down, and start eating pizza.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](https://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com/)!


	31. Interlude 9: February, 2002 // This would have been a lot easier if you had watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

“Oh, come on,” Dave muttered, watching the Caramello Bar prop itself up awkwardly against the glass, lean forward like a drunken idiot and definitely not fall down into the slot below. He thumped a closed fist against the plexiglass. The bar shuddered, but didn’t move. “Fuck you,” he grumbled, giving the machine another good whack.

“Need any help?”

Dave turned to the familiar voice. Rose’s hotshot, good-looking young lawyer stood behind him, head tilted. Dave sized him up quickly, noting the droplets of rain spattering the shoulders of his nice overcoat and the frames of his glasses, the relaxed and glossy look in his striking green eyes, and the faint smell of nicotine hanging in the air.

He groaned and leaned back against the thieving vending machine. “Fuck yeah, I do,” he said. “Don’t suppose I can bum a cigarette?”

The guy looked startled for a moment, and then ducked his head and shuffled in closer. “Ah,” he said, lowering his voice. “You won’t tell Miss Smith, will you? She doesn’t approve.”

Dave snorted, crossing his arms. “Shit, doesn’t she? Is that usual attorney-client shit? Policing your packs-a-day ratio?”

“No,” the lawyer said, clearing his throat awkwardly. “But Miss Smith has a way about her, as I’m sure you know.”

Dave cracked a smile. He thought of Rose sitting up there on the stand, head high, eyes forward, chin tilted slightly upwards, lying through her fucking teeth one moment and telling the kind of truths that could curdle milk the next. Showing the sort of strength that five hundred pound bodybuilders could only dream about, and doing it all with that perfect poise.

“Yeah,” Dave murmured. “I know all about Miss Smith.”

The lawyer pushed up his glasses and switched his briefcase to his other hand. “On the subject,” he said, “I don’t think you should take the time to smoke, Mi -- that is, Mr. Johnson. I was just on my way back to the courtroom. They paged me to say they’re about to read the verdict.”

Oh.

Fuck.

“Jesus,” Dave said, brushing past Rose’s lawyer and starting toward the courtroom, forgetting all about the Caramello bar _and_ the cigarette, both. “Fuck, why didn’t you say something earlier?”

He knew, rationally, that they wouldn’t start without Rose’s lead counsel. But it would be just the thing, right? Just like him, to have spent the entire deliberation period parked right outside the room, just to go and get his snack on right when Rose finally got her justice.

Fucking god, please, let Rose get her justice.

Rose was already standing at the desk with the rest of her lawyers when Dave pushed into the room. It was mostly empty, which continued to shock him. It seemed to him as if the seriousness of the accusations and the amount of money being bandied about would have caught the attention of a prying public and a dozen reporters. And maybe it would, when Rose went to court against the state of New York. But for now, for this first, deeply personal sally, it’s just a few of Rose’s friends from college on one side of the aisle, and her foster mother on the other, silently supporting the fucking asshole who’d raped his own foster daughter for a decade.

Dave’s hands curled into fists as he slipped into the row behind Rose. “I’m here, I’m back,” he said quietly, and maybe he imagined it, but he swore he saw her breathe a small sigh of relief.

Moments later, she was joined by the hapless, rain-speckled, handsome young buck who’d fought this case for her. “Sorry, Your Honour,” he said, bobbing once. “We’re prepared for the verdict.”

Dave barely heard the actual words. He just saw the way Rose’s shoulders tensed and then released, the way she gripped the table before her as if her legs were going to give out, and the way she swayed as the tide of relief hit her.

 

_Judgement for the plaintiff in the amount of four million dollars to be paid over a period of ten years..._

 

Late into the night, Dave found himself sitting at the bar in the kind of place where touching pretty much anything could give you a staph infection. He was cradling his fifth drink, the radio blasted Avril Lavigne, and Rose sat beside him, smiling and drinking and seeming so fucking _free_ that he barely recognized her after the last three years of tension, lawyers, and testimonies.

“I hate this song,” he called. “We get it, Avril, he made it complicated. Go back to Canada.”

“Who says it’s a he?” Rose laughed, motioning the mustachioed bartender for another drink. “Have you seen Avril Lavigne, Dave? I’d feel _more_ than confident approaching her.”

Dave looked away, down into his drink. Something about Rose’s frank discussion of her gayness sat between his shoulderblades in a way that it didn’t usually bother him at all. “So...” he took a long drink of his cider. “Now that you’re a fuckin’ millionaire…”

He felt her tense a bit beside him. “Of course,” she said. “I did promise you some compensation for helping me, though I would like to wait until after the CPS case is finished before any money is exchanged…”

Fuck. “No, shit, that’s not what I meant, I was just…” Trying to talk about something other than gay shit and awkwardly stepping in it, as usual. He shook his head, turning about in his seat to look at her. “Sorry. Me being me. All awkward and shit. How are you feeling?”

She leaned back, twisting her head to look at him. “Tipsy,” she quipped, but he saw the relief in her and hated himself for worrying her even for a second.

“Sweet,” he said.

“No, I know what you mean, though.” She shifted entirely so that she was facing him, dangling her drink from one hand. “I do. It’s over, isn’t it? The hard part, at least. The state wants to launch a criminal case, but I’m not cooperating with it. And Brian’s declined to testify to defend himself in the CPS case -- doesn’t want the publicity to ruin what’s left of his career -- so I never have to see him again.” She closed her eyes for just a moment, and her face turned so serene Dave could have sworn she was a fucking angel. “Never.”

He just watched her for a long moment, her long lashes fanned out across her cheeks, the gradient of her thick, dark makeup across her eyelids, her lips curved into a small, peaceful smile.

He noticed the moment a stitch appeared between her bows.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him and turned back to the bar. “It just feels… different than I thought it would. I thought it would be more...”

“... satisfying?” he supplied, when she didn’t complete her thought.

She laughed. “A little, I suppose. I was thinking more… _dirty_.” She savoured the word carefully, and then shook her head. “Not in a _bad_ way,” she clarified. “I’m not even certain it’s the right word, to be honest. Maybe I mean… visceral, instead. I did so much to make sure that he lost. I lied. Exploited the system. Lived with his abuse for a _decade._ It should feel raw. Triumphant. Hard-fought. You know?”

“Sure.” He didn’t, not really.

“But I just feel… tranquil. Serene. Like being in a quiet room after leaving a crowd, only that stillness is inside of me. I never have to see him again, Dave. I was smart, I was practical, and now I can do whatever I want.”

“Yeah,” he said, kind of getting it, this time. Fuck, did it matter if he understood it or not? Rose was at peace. He’d helped her get there. That was what mattered. He drained his cider. “What _do_ you want?”

She laughed quietly and smiled. With teeth. Which she only did when she wasn’t performing at all. “I have some ideas,” she pronounced, swirling her drink. “Well. More than that. I’ve actually been in contact with a number of agents, actually.”

“What, for… acting?”

She fixed him with an exasperated look. “Not everything is movies, Dave. No, for _writing_ , silly. You know that I like to write.”

“Well, yeah. Like… Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic, and shit.”

“Yes, _and_ , actual books. A number of quite prestigious literary agents are currently competing for my attention. I’ve written something that I think is quite good, and the publishing world seems to agree.” She tilted her head and smiled faintly. “Writing always seemed like the right career move for me, but it’s notoriously hard to make a living in. Brian was quick to remind me that he would happily help to support me if I were to take such a path through life, and now he’ll be doing just that.” She closed her eyes as she took a long drink. “Never again,” she murmured when she lowered it, and Dave looked away quickly, because he didn’t think he could watch Rose blink away tears without it resulting in him crying, too.

“Well,” he said, sounding a little hoarse and muffled and awkward. “That’s good, right?”

“Yes, Dave,” she said, with long-suffering patience. “That’s very good. As you mentioned, I’m a millionaire, now, even if I don’t win the CPS case. I can support myself just fine while trying to sell books. Hm. It sounds nice, doesn’t it?” She sighed. “It sounds very nice.”

They sat in silence for a long moment. The radio switched from Avril to Eminem, which Dave considered a _vast_ improvement, and found himself jiggling his leg along with.

“Have you seen any of the more recent seasons?” Rose asked.

“What?”

“What do you think of the most recent season of Buffy?” Rose repeated, patiently, like she was speaking to a very small child.

Dave snorted. “Okay,” he said. “First of all.” He held up his glass and tilted his head in the direction of the bartender’s mustache. “I think you’re operating under a _few_ stacking misconceptions, here.”

She sighed hugely. “I told you to watch it.”

“Yeah, well…”

“ _Well_ , it’s for girls, or something?”

“I mean, yeah, it is pretty _explicitly_ for girls.”

She hummed under her breath and shrugged. “Fine. You can miss out on one of the most iconic stories of our lifetimes if you want. I only wanted to ask if you enjoyed what they were doing with Willow in the most recent seasons.”

“Again,” Dave said, nodding at the bartender as he filled up his glass. “There are really a lot of assumptions happening, here.”

“Are you seeing anyone right now, Dave?”

The shift in topic caught him off guard and he sat up a bit straighter, spilling some of his cider on the bartop. “Uh… well, I mean, no.”

_I’m way too hung up on you for anything to last very long._

“Interesting. Well. I happen to know someone who is interested.”

“What, in _me_?”

“Yes. They find you very intriguing, and good-looking, and seemed quite interested when I spoke about your film-making aspirations. In addition, I think you actually would be a good fit. You’ve met, and I’ve always gotten the impression that you were quite taken in, yourself.”

“Shit,” Dave said, settling back. It didn’t feel right, talking about this right after Rose’s big victory, after the hell of a day she had, having to face Brian in the courtroom. It seemed like the worst possible time to be setting him up. And in truth, he wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to be set up, because that always seemed to have the expectations of something long-lasting.

And at the same time, he’d been in New York for two weeks, around Rose almost every day, and even with the two girls he’d taken home from late-night bar crawls while Rose and her hot lawyer strategized, he was in a state of near-constant sexual frustration.

“Well,” he drawled, trying to sound casual. “Who is she, then? Anne? The roommate? Set me up, dude.”

“Hm. I’m not sure I should.” Rose drained the rest of her glass, setting it down on the bar. “You can be so very Texan about some things, Dave. I don’t know if I want to wrestle your close-minded Southern brainwashing for hours. Not today, at least.” She fluttered her lashes at him. “You might not have heard, but I’m a very wealthy woman, and so there are numerous demands on my time.”

She slid off her stool and gathered up her dramatic black wrap from the back of it. When she swept it around herself, she looked like a crow or a manta-ray. Dave watched her, wrestling with an unfair pit of anger in his stomach.

“Come on, don’t be like that,” he said. He sounded pathetic, even to himself. “Introduce us, it’ll be cool, don’t act like I haven’t dated all kinds of different people.”

She reached up and patted his cheek. “This is more of a ‘same’ issue, actually.” She turned away. “I’ll meet you back at my place?”

He wanted to go back with her. Didn’t he? He looked down at his half-empty cider. No. No, he actually really did want to sit here and nurse this shit, apparently. “In my defense,” he said. “It’s pretty hard to track down tapes for Buffy, okay?”

“I’ll buy you DVDs. And a player. I’m rich now, remember?”

She swept out and left him alone.

For about five minutes.

Someone climbed up into the seat beside him, and when Dave half-turned to see who it was, he realized that it was the good-looking lawyer from Rose’s team. “Oh,” he said. “Shit. Hi.”

“Hello!” The lawyer -- Alex? -- said, smiling with white teeth and gleaming eyes. Dave wasn’t sure he’d ever seen eyes so green in his life, other than that crazy old broad who’d met them outside the plaza and asked them about past lives and -- and other things he didn’t think about. “I expected you to go off with Miss Smith! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Yeah, I’m full of those.”

Alex? waved down the bartender. “I’ll have a cosmopolitan, thank you!” he said, in his usual slightly too excited voice.

Dave snorted. “Oh, shit. Careful, I think I just heard your balls sneak back up inside of you there, dude.”

Alex -- he was pretty sure it was Alex -- laughed. “Ah. Haha. One of the few, um, advantages of being openly gay in this city is that you’re allowed to drink the things that _taste_ good instead of having to defend my masculinity with…” He waved vaguely at Dave’s drink. “Whatever that is.”

“It’s cider, and it tastes fucking great.” Dave’s brow furrowed and he swore under his breath, noticing, for the first time, and this case had been going on for _years_ , Alex’s nice shoes, manicured nails, and well-styled hair.

Jesus.

Wow, he was an idiot.

“But, uh okay, rad, sweet. Carry on, then, I guess, dude.” It suddenly felt like a billion degrees in the seedy bar, and the promise of the winter night sounded like a fucking blessing from on high. “Sorry, uh…” He slid off his chair, feeling around for his coat.

“I -- I didn’t make you… god, I thought you knew,” Alex said, jumping down along with him and grabbing his coat from the back of his chair. “I’ve never made a secret of it. Susan said that’s why she chose me as her representation, so that she wouldn’t have to make any bones about _herself_ when we discussed strategies, or…” He scrunched his handsome face up -- _no, stop, Dave, you’re not allowed to notice he’s good-looking anymore_. “This is very -- Susan said she was going to -- oh, bother.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Do you want me to walk you to a ta --”

“No!” Dave said, forcefully, and turned away, walking as fast as he could towards the door. The lawyer’s presence behind him was like a coal burning into his back. He hailed the first taxi he could find back to Rose’s apartment, his mind going a million miles a minute. That hadn’t actually -- he was just reading into this all wrong, he was drawing the wrong conclusions, this couldn’t actually be.

When Rose opened the door of her apartment, he didn’t even wait for her to say hello before pushing past her, turning around, and spitting: “Do you think I’m fucking _gay_?”

When she turned to him, one hand still on the door, her expression was pained. “I suppose Alex stuck his foot in it, then? It is beyond comprehension how that man can be so subtle and wily in the courtroom and such a bumbling idiot socially.”

God, then it was true. “What the fuck, Rose! You’ve known me since I was -- you should know that I’m not fucking --” he cut himself off, because the word he was going to use was really not one he should be using to his lesbian crush.

Her lips folded into a line and she closed the door. “Do you mind keeping it down? Anne is asleep.”

“He’s the one you were talking about.”

“I really didn’t want to have this conversation today, Dave, can you at least respect that?”

“I --”

He snapped his mouth shut _again_ , whirling away from her so that he could put both hands on his temples, take a deep breath, and not say something really, really bad. He ran ten fingers through his hair, tried to breathe normally, wondered just how long she’d been --

“For whatever it’s worth, I actually don’t think you’re gay.”

“Dude, fuck, what the hell?”

“This would have been a lot easier if you had just watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

“Oh my god.”

Dave wanted to just push back past her, head out into the night, and… and fucking… what? God, he couldn’t stop thinking of little things, like how often he’d noticed Lawyer Alex’s eyes and hair and boyish good looks and the way that his haplessness was kind of charming and he _was most definitely not gay._

“Last season, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the writers had written in a new female love interest for Buffy’s best friend, Willow. But it struck me that it was impossible to deny the real, intense emotion and even lust that had existed in Willow’s relationship with her previous love interest, who had been a boy. I think I enjoy the Tara romance _more_ , but Oz and Willow had always seemed like a good fit, and I do believe that Willow sincerely cared about him and was physically and sexually attracted to him.”

“Okay, I’m not sure if you’re just confused about who you’re talking to right now, but you are definitely not on your internet forum and oh, also, you’re a twenty-six year old woman rambling about Buffy the fucking Vampire Slayer.”

“There’s something between gay and straight, Dave.”

“Cool, that’s totally irrelevant to me.”

“That’s utter nonsense, and you know it.”

“What the fuck, Rose?”

“Do you mean to say that you haven’t noticed all the Freudian slips you’ve made throughout your entire life?”

“Aha! I thought you said Freud’s ideas didn’t hold up. You definitely said that, at least once.”

She dropped her hands to the side, and for a moment, she just looked so exhausted that he felt guilty for every last bit of this, for being such an asshole about it, today of all days.

“I really wish Alex hadn’t said anything,” she murmured. “He was just so -- it’s no longer a conflict of interest, with this case over, and I suppose he was over eager…” She blinked slowly and looked up at him. There was a look of dull pleading in her eyes, and he had to look away. “Can we just… talk about this, later? Please? At least just in the morning.”

And he should, he knew he should, but he just… somehow, he just needed her to understand, because if she thought…

“I’m not fucking gay, Rose,” he repeated. “You know it’s true, because you know how much I love you.”

She flinched.

He regretted it immediately.

She brushed hair behind her ear. For the first time, he noticed that she was just wearing loose flannel pyjamas and a terry cloth dressing robe, with no socks and makeup scrubbed away. He’d been so beside himself with righteous indignation, he hadn’t even taken a second to see how completely relaxed she’d looked.

Not so relaxed, anymore.

“Hey…” he said, quietly.

“No, it’s… I do know,” she murmured. “I do. I have forever, it’s never been a secret, really, has it?” She looked up at him, her eyes wounded. “But you know… you have to know, Dave, if there _is_ something between gay and straight, I’m… it’s most certainly, definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent not me. I do not live in that valley. I’ve built a mansion out of old centrefolds of Hilary Swank at the very top of one of the mountains.”

“I know,” he muttered. He ought to say more, but for once in his life, absolutely no words would come.

“... I’m so tired, Dave,” she said, finally moving. She walked across the floor and laid a hand on his upper arm. “It’s been the longest day of my life. I feel like it started ten years ago when he first --” She shook her head. “We can talk about this in the morning, all right?” She hesitated, and then squeezed his arm, very gently. “For whatever it’s worth, I love you, too. You know that, right? Not in that way, but…”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice hoarse.

She left him there, in the living room, looking at the blanket covered couch and wondering how he was supposed to sleep and also, about, oh, a thousand other things.

Lawyer-Alex sure did had a hell of a smile.

He shook the thought off and crawled in to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [my tumblr!](http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com)


	32. But The Truth Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

I’m laying under a tree.

A big, beautiful green tree, with sunlight filtering through its leaves and dappling on my skin. The grass around me is thick and green and lush, and the air smells like outdoors and coppery heat. It’s the kind of beautiful summer day I used to imagine normal kids got while I suffered through horrendous Texas summers that smelled like hot steel and asphalt and horse dung. It reminds me of foster kid summer camp, me and Rose under the big old tree where we met, knowing that no matter what happened, we were together.

I roll onto my stomach. I’m looking down at my phone. My heart squeezes at the sight of purple text, but I can’t quite remember why. Just that the very thought of Rose fills me with the sort of existential anxiety that could tear a guy apart.

TT: Hello, Dave.  
TT: Do you have a moment, perhaps?  
TG: hey  
TG: whats up

I kick my legs up behind me and wait for her reply.

TT: Oh, nothing.  
TT: Simply offering afternoon greetings on this fine summer day in our new world.  
TT: Carry on with your business, I suppose.  
TT: I’m sorry to have disturbed you.  
TG: hm  
TG: nah  
TG: i dont think so fam  
TG: thats some bullshit  
TG: i call bullshit  
TG: i stand on the goddamn slopes of mt everest yodeling bullshit at the top of my fuckin lungs  
TG: its echoing down among valleys and shit  
TG: sheep all running everywhere spooked out  
TG: are there sheep on everest  
TT: I don’t think there are sheep anywhere, anymore. Though if I recall correctly, they might be next on Roxy’s ectobiological reconstruction list?  
TT: I think she’s mostly motivated by wanting me to start knitting, again.  
TT: Apparently, a penchant for yarn and needles applied to both style and revolution is one of the defining legendary traits of my post-Scratch self, and she wants to see the myth become flesh.  
TT: I’m fascinated by her fascination, in all honesty.  
TT: And perhaps a bit eager to tap into that side of myself? An entire life, lived separate from this one. And yet, so many similarities. It challenges many psychological concepts, and provides previously unobservable evidence in the age-old questions of nature vs. nurture.  
TT: Surely nothing in that first hour of life my alternate self and I shared gave us both a firm predetermination towards knitting. And yet, what is the alternative? Could there possibly be a genetic component to something so banal? It’s certainly not ancestral memory, as I have only one ancestor, who, in turn, has zero.  
TG: lmao @ you  
TT: Oh, speaking of Roxy!  
TT: I see her influence hasn’t been entirely lost on you.  
TT: Or is there a genetic component to internet voice, as well?  
TG: shut up  
TG: im making a point here and that point is  
TG: wow where did you learn how to ramble until some nosy asshole forgets what they were asking in the first place or just gives up or whatever  
TG: oh wait i know exactly where you got that  
TG: and you owe me money cuz youre in straight up violation of my fuckin patents   
TG: cant distract the master motherfucker  
TG: what did you actually pester me about  
TT: Ugh.  
TT: I remain not entirely fond of your growing emotional intelligence, Dave.  
TT: I think I preferred our relationship when I could unfailingly manipulate you to perform my bidding.  
TG: ok  
TG: why are you on my phone  
TT: Persistent.  
TG: yah  
TT: Mn.  
TT: … are you happy, Dave?  
TG: wait really?  
TG: thats what youre asking  
TT: Yes.  
TG: why  
TT: Because I want to know.  
TG: uh  
TG: i mean  
TG: i think you know the answer to that  
TG: like  
TG: im just saying like  
TG: everything is over  
TG: nobody died  
TG: at least not permanently  
TG: were here  
TG: im with karkat  
TG: got to meet my kid bro and found out some shit about myself  
TG: roxys fuckin rad  
TG: everyones pretty rad in fact  
TG: cool planet  
TG: cool universe  
TG: so yeah  
TT: So you’re happy?  
TG: i mean  
TG: yeah?  
TT: All right.  
TG: what arent you  
TT: I think so.  
TG: ok  
TG: thats weird  
TG: but whatever  
TT: Maybe happy isn’t quite the right word.  
TT: Are you… *satisfied?*  
TG: oh  
TG: yeah that one is easier  
TG: yes im satisfied as shit  
TT: I see.  
TG: but youre not i guess  
TT: I don’t know!  
TT: I just don’t know.  
TT: Yes?  
TT: I, too, have made peace with many things about my place in the universe and my relationships with the people I am connected to in its web, both those related to me biologically and those I am bound to by mere fate.  
TT: I have Kanaya in my life, and I will indulge with enough mawkishness to say that she completes me in a way I honestly did not think romantic love actually could, prior to meeting her.  
TT: And I have a purpose. It is, in essence, *her* purpose, but it’s noble, crucial, and a legacy worth pursuing.  
TT: Those would seem to be the key elements to being a completely fulfilled person.  
TT: And yet…  
TG: yet what  
TT: I don’t know.  
TT: That’s why I contacted you. To ask if you also had a sense of incomplete totality, to test if I am the only one feeling as if my life is fundamentally unfinished.  
TG: well i mean  
TG: im not trying to be a fuckin pedant here dude but  
TG: yeah id hope your life feels unfinished  
TG: cause like  
TG: one  
TG: it literally is  
TG: and two  
TG: were only chronologically like 22 or something at this point i think?  
TG: dont think youre supposed to feel all  
TG: ah yes ive accomplished every single thing my life is gonna be doing and im ready to fuckin die i guess  
TG: until youre at least like  
TG: thirty  
TT: I know.  
TT: I do.  
TT: In theory, that’s the full truth. For a normal person, it is indeed too early to feel as if one should be ‘done.’ But to compare our experience to that of the average human or even troll or cherub is just flawed.   
TT: The average human being was and is given a full life to ascertain who and what they are, what they will accomplish, and what their existence means in the grand scheme of the multiverse.  
TT: But us?  
TT: It was all decided before we were born.  
TT: Which is, of course, not even an accurate description of how we came into business, as we were never, in the most technical sense, even born at all.  
TT: I am not a soul on my way to discovering myself through a life of trial and error.  
TT: I am a Seer of Light, and not only will I live forever, my life will be a model to others. Already *is* a model for others.  
TT: I have not, and in fact, none of us have been given leave to explore our identities, but merely to grow into them and them fulfil them.  
TT: And I simply suppose I do not feel fully...fulfilled.

I look down at the blinking cursor, my thumbs hovering over my phone. I don’t know what to say to her. I’m also not sure I understand anything she’s saying. It’s absurd and alien and sci-fi for reasons that I can’t understand or vocalize. And yet at the same time… this all feels normal, familiar, right. The tree, the sky, the grass. Rose.

Am I dreaming?

I’m not sure.

TT: Dave?

And I think…

TT: Are you still there? I apologize. These thoughts are probably too heavy for you. I should have gone to Dirk. I simply don’t feel… close enough to him.

I think Rose might hate me?

TG: rose, i --

I wake up.

Do I?

I blink into utter darkness. My heart is racing. Something is here. Something is in the room with me.

I turn my head to look, trying to reach for a weapon, something. But I can’t move my head. It’s tied me up, and it’s pushing me down into the bed. My toes tingle. Fuck. Fuck, something is here, something is here --

And then I see her.

Looming over me, her skin black in the darkness. Her eyes glimmer phosphorescent in the light from my clock radio. Her hair falls around her in snakes, pooling onto my face and chest.

She grins, and a mouth full of anglerfish teeth glitter sharply.

Oh, fucking Jesus.

I close my eyes, squeezing them so tight I feel tears pressed out from the corners. I can smell her breath, hot and rancid like cod liver oil or old, spoiled tuna. I’m falling, I think, falling and tingling and weighed down, and she’s fucking here, she’s fucking _here_.

 

I open my mouth to scream, to shout for Karkat to get the fuck out, but it’s like no air will escape my throat.

And a shudder runs through me, and I gasp and sit up all at once, and the illusion pops like a fucking bubble.

My eyes fly open.

There’s nothing in the room.

I test my voice.

“Karkat?”

An annoyed, muffled groan comes from the direction of the pull-out couch, and then nothing else. I clasp a hand to my throat, trying to talk down my pounding heart. I swear, I swear I saw her, standing over my bed, as real as fucking anything…

Rose’s voice comes to me.

_Sleep paralysis_ , she says, matter-of-factly. _It’s a common enough sleep disorder. Most people will experience it at least once in their lives. Categorized primarily by waking up from a deep sleep with the inability to move anything but one’s eyes, it’s more commonly known for the heavy weight on the chest of the afflicted, a sense of utter dread, and, occasionally, vivid, intense hallucinations._

Then, in a quieter echo:

_Of course, there are more things in heaven or earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy._

And finally,

_You don’t get to apologize. Not for this, Dave._

I flinch.

Then I haul ass out of bed and head for the shower.

The clock radio said 1:54, which means that it’s officially been five days since Rose showed up at my house, since I took a dive into the pool, since Karkat said _I love you_ and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. We’re coming up on the end of January, here, now, and, for what it’s worth, I’m still alive.

I turn the tap on and stand under the water. I make it hot as hell, and it’s scalding on my skin, but it feels good. I swear to god, there’s still a lingering scent of fish clinging to me, and I need to get if off and away as soon as I fucking can. I turn my face into the water, close my eyes, hold my breath, and get blasted until I feel like I’ve just got a goddamn skin peel.

I gasp, turning my face away, and just stand there, panting.

Then I turn the water off, wrap myself in furry towels, and pad back into the blackness of the adjoining room.

I sit at the edge of my bed, slowly drying off. My head is pleasantly empty, for once not whirling with thoughts, ideas, or anxieties. I run a hand through my wet hair, then shake it out like I’m a dog. Droplets of water go flying.

I can hear Karkat breathing.

I close my eyes, listening to him. He’s deep asleep, and if I go deep into myself, I can syncopate my breath to his, filling him his empty spaces with the air from my lungs. I want to go over there. Curl in beside him. Hold him. Cuddling is innocent and nice and good, right? I’m not evil if I just cuddle the guy I’m in love with, whether he’s seventeen or not. I could just…

No.

No. I drew my line in the sand. I can’t cross it, and I certainly can’t negotiate it over a few inches. I won’t be that guy. I fucking won’t.

Karkat murmurs in his sleep, I start, and my phone buzzes.

_Rose_ , I immediately think, and then shake it off.

I furrow my brow.

I check the clock again. It’s 2:08 after my shower and towel-down. Definitely not Rose, my own stupid wishful thinking aside. If, by some strange dark magic, she’s decided to forgive me, she definitely wouldn’t be texting at 5 AM New York time.

So who, then?

I roll back in bed, flopping a hand over to grab my phone. I hold it above my face, unlock it.

It’s not a text. Or a call. Or even a voicemail. Instead, the unused chat app that came with my phone is lit up.

I touch it.

)(er Imperious Condescension began pestering turntechGodhead  
)(IC: fuck is this  
)(IC: u gotta be fuckin kiddin me  
)(IC: i tune in to the big moment when u become a real thorn in my seaside  
)(IC: and u just nekkid as a grub and double harmless  
)(IC: u gonna threaten my empire reely

What the fuck?

TG: uh hi  
TG: who the fuck is this  
TG: hold up sorry did that wrong  
TG: new phone who dis  
)(IC: cute  
)(IC: reel cute  
)(IC: bitch u know who i is  
)(IC: think about it for 2 fucking seconds yo

I stare at the strange, burgundy text, my heart skipping every third beat. I don’t know who this is. And yet…

TG: yeah  
TG: actually i think i do kinda have a suspicion  
)(IC: gud  
)(IC: u aint stupid  
)(IC: just weak  
)(IC: cant believe this shit  
)(IC: grubby little whatshisnobody  
)(IC: look like the underside of ma lusus  
)(IC: how u fuckin me up so bad  
TG: not sure i am  
TG: yet  
)(IC: yeah well  
)(IC: guess whose callin from yet fool  
)(IC: wouldnt believe how hard it was to get this client to talk to trollian tho  
)(IC: should use bettybother  
)(IC: i hear its the best  
)(IC: >38)  
TG: what the fuck is that  
)(IC: got the viewport working tho  
)(IC: and here i am lookin into the night things got annoyin for me  
)(IC: and i see u  
)(IC: pretty FUCKIN DISAPPOINTING  
)(IC: well  
)(IC: least i know who u are now buoy  
)(IC: facial recognition took jus bout bait seconds to find u, dave strider  
)(IC: hope u dont think u safe in that dark room  
)(IC: cuz u bout to start fuckin w/ the queen  
)(IC: and u come at the queen u best not miss  
)(IC: ull win for a bit but i see u now and dis worm bout to turn  
TG: on second thought  
TG: you know what  
TG: im gonna stick with my original response  
TG: new phone who dis?  
)(IC: laugh it up  
)(IC: but u all alone in that room just like ur gonna be all alone wheni gut u like a trout 38)  
)(IC: sweet dreams mahfucka  
)(er Imperious Condescension logged the fuck out.  
TG: think youre talking to the guy who had this number before  
unable to deliver message  
TG: all his old dominatrixes keep calling  
unable to deliver message  
TG: wish hed get yall in a group text or something so i stopped getting these weirdass calls  
unable to deliver message

Yeah.

Pretty sure she’s gone.

I drop the phone to my side and close my eyes.

I’m shaking. All over, actually. My blase bravado melts in the face of what the fuck just happened, and I hear my breath start coming out in shuddering starts and stops. Jesus Christ.

That was her.

Fifteen minutes after I sleep paralysis hallucinate her in my fucking bedroom, she -- what? Quantum leaps into my goddamn phone, or something? What the fuck? What the _fuck_?

I try to piece together logic from anything she just said to me, but this feeling of panic keeps rising in my throat and choking me. I sit up again, to try and help me breathe easier, but it’s still near impossible to get full breaths out. I squeeze my eyes shut. Maybe it was just more sleep paralysis.

I check.

Fuschia text looks back at me from the screen of my phone.

And then it starts ringing.

I nearly fucking drop it in terror. It’s her, again. She’s coming for me. Rose was wrong about everything, because there’s no resistance, no doomed effort to protect mankind. This is it, the night that I die, because she has a target on my back and she’s found me.

But it’s not )(er Imperious Condescension, whatever that even means.

It’s Rose.

Caller ID proclaims this fact proudly, like it’s no big deal, while I feel a lump spring into my throat and my eyes tingle and prickle. Frantically, I double-check the number. This has to be a mistake, right? But no, it’s her. It’s the only fucking phone number I have memorized, to the eternal consternation of the people I worked with, back when I worked.

What do I do?

_Answer it, fuckhead,_ Karkat seems to whisper in my ear, and, with trembling fingers, I slide right.

“... hello?” I breathe into the receiver, and wait with my eyes closed and breath held for a stream of renewed invective against me.

“Hello? Is this Dave?”

It isn’t Rose’s voice.

“... yeah,” I say, slumping. I didn’t even realize how tense I’d gotten until all the capacity to hold myself up just went out of me. I fall back onto the bed, a puppet with his strings cut. “Yeah, this is Dave. Hi. Who’s this and why do you have Rose’s phone?” I feel hollowed out, obliterated with dismay. Even if I was getting an earful of abuse, just the idea that she cared enough about me to call…

There’s a pause on the other line. Then a sigh. “I… this is awkward.” It’s a woman’s voice, low and throaty and strained. “I don’t exactly know her very well. At all, really. She’s… this is the most dialed number in her phone, and she’s been talking about you all night, and I don’t want to just leave her here…”

I furrow my brow, running a hand through my hair. “What? Sorry, I’m not getting you. Where are you?”

“At the Hollywood Roosevelt. I’m… I met Rose in the hotel bar.” A deep breath. “Legally, I _don’t_ work here.”

… oh.

Jesus fuck.

I blink up at the ceiling. Rose, soliciting a hooker? That can’t be right. Rose is one of those whore-positive, john-negative kinds of feminists and has always been pretty damn outright about it. Maybe she didn’t know? Maybe this is some sort of misunderstanding? Maybe…

“Look, sorry, you’re right. This _is_ awkward. Rose and I --” I stop. Goddamn, I shouldn’t be involving some poor high class escort in this, and honestly -- honestly, the important thing is Rose. It always is, after all, and _I don’t want to just leave her here_ is growing more ominous in my head every passing second. “Why are you calling, what is this, exactly?”

“She was very drunk,” the woman says, almost apologetically. “Not at first, but she ordered wine to the room, and she hasn’t stopped, and she’s passed out here, and I can’t wake her up, and I can’t call anyone to help without…”

“Right,” I say.

“Right,” she agrees, her voice awash with gratitude. “Her phone wasn’t locked. And once she started really drinking, she hasn’t stopped talking about you. So, I thought I’d…”

She doesn’t want to directly ask, but I think I get the fucking situation pretty well.

_Your best friend is passed out in a hotel room, I could get us both in trouble reporting it, please come help because I really don’t want this nice famous author to choke on her own vomit with this room covered in my fingerprints._

Something like that.

“... I’m only about half an hour away,” I say. Twenty minutes, in decent traffic.

I swallow hard, but my throat is dry. It suddenly occurs to me that I might be dreaming. This might still be some new, cruel kind of sleep paralysis, something worse than alien empresses going bump in the night. My subconscious offering me a slim crack of a fucking chance back into Rose Lalonde’s life.

I pinch myself.

I don’t wake up.

“I can be there and handle it. Got a room number?”

She sighs and I hear the phone scrape her hair as she nods on the other end. There’s a relieved sort of smile in her voice. “Thank you, thank you. We’re in the penthouse. I can meet you in the lobby with the elevator key. I’m wearing a black dress. What will you look like?”

I laugh quietly. “I’ll be the asshole in mirrored shades.”

After I hang up, the air seems still and heavy. There’s a deep sense of unreality to everything, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to blink and wake up. Check my phone and have it be eight in the morning, with a dozen messages from Karkat about having made breakfast.

“Dave?” Karkat asks, quiet in the darkness.

It’s the sound of his voice that shatters the spell.

God fucking Jesus damn.

I sit up. “Hey,” I murmur. “Go back to sleep, okay.”

“Were you talking to someone?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“Uhhh…” I kick around in the dark, looking for the pair of loose, worn jeans I’d left strewn in my wake on my wake to sleep. My foot connects with their soft bulk. “Nobody.”

“Right,” he yawns. “ _Nobody_ called you at three fucking midnight and has you trying to find something to wear…”

“Yep,” I agree.

“What’s going on?”

I pull a shirt over my head. “Not sure, yet,” I say. “Just… something I gotta go deal with. I’ll be back before morning, don’t worry, okay?”

I hear him shift, and then sigh. “Okay,” he agrees. “Be careful.”

“Yeah,” I agree.

I remember to grab my shades on the way out, my heart thumping against my ribs like the beating of an EDM track bassline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can follow me on [tumblr!](http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle)


	33. I Can't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

Sometimes, it’s the little things that tell you how far gone something -- or someone -- really is.

I valet my car, a nice little red sporty one, at the Hollywood Roosevelt. I’m wearing a scuffed up red hoodie, pyjama bottoms, a ball-cap, and a pair of hipster glasses with fake lenses in them. I don’t look like Dave Strider, superstar director. I look like a guy who got an unfortunate and awkward 4 AM phone call. The look really nails my life right now.

So here I am, looking around the lobby, trying to find this hooker Rose ended up with, somehow. And I look past her. Once, twice, a third time. There’s a girl standing by the elevator, a svelte blonde cutie, and I don’t even register her as an option.

I realize I’m not wearing the shades I told her I’d have. I reach into my pocket and slip them on. Instantly, the blonde hottie’s eyes widen a bit and she discreetly waves my ass over.

And I’m like,

Fuck.

Rose has loved or banged or dated two dozen women that I’ve met, probably. She likes women and hasn’t found anyone to settle down with, and those two things add up. And they’ve been all colours and creeds and shapes and sizes, except for one thing. They’re always, you know. Alternative. What counts as alternative varies with the decade, and what flavour of alternative varies with the girl, but from spiky punk girls to silky goth girls to frumpy romance novel girls to glossy cosplay girls, they’re never like this. White, blonde, slender.

Generic.

That’s when I realize just how fucked up Rose has got to be.

“You aren’t going to call the cops?” the woman says, palming me the key as she pretends to shake my hand.

“Definitely not,” I say.

She breathes a sigh of relief. “Good. All right, good. The hotel will help get you out, if you need it. I, um, work for them.”

I nod, and she nods, and she skitters off, and I watch her go. She’s in a little black dress, her blonde hair sways. She could be a dozen women in this hotel alone. She’s gorgeous and, honestly, I’m sure she’s got a sparkling personality. But she’s just… not Rose.

I head into the elevator. I stick the key in the penthouse button and turn it, and the contraption instantly whirs to life. I’m carried up through storeys and storeys of glitzy LA hotel finery, and when the doors slide open to reveal a sumptuous penthouse, I feel as if maybe I’ve been transported to another world.

The lights are dim and it’s quiet. I step out of the elevator, palming the key, and the doors slide shut behind me.

“Rose?” I call.

No response.

Or -- hm, what the fuck?

I strain my ears and follow the thin thread of sound that touches me. It’s music, or -- something terribly not-music, more like. Rose, bless her dumb ass, has never had any voice worth writing home about, and only sings when she’s, well. Fucking plastered.

“Theeeese _dreams_ go on wheniclosemy eyeees,” she whisper-sings, and I follow her. “Every _second_ of the _night_ \-- I live another liiiiiiiiife.”

“Rose, stop murdering Heart,” I call, trying to sound jovial and friendly. I hear my own hesitance, my fear. “They didn’t do anything to deserve this, you know. They’re nice old fucks with weird hair. I think. Fuck, are they dead, Rose? I hope Heart aren’t fucking dead, I’m gonna feel like a real dick.”

The music (“music”) stops. I strain to listen.

“Not dead,” she murmurs. “Not that old, either. Normal hair, now. I liked their hair back then, too. Especially Nancy. Ann was everyone’s favourite, but I always liked Nancy...”

I go toward the voice and her, and I find her. Slumped on the floor of the bathroom, an empty bottle of Grey Goose on the rim of the bathtub and a half-dull Cristal in her hand.

“Fuck, dude,” I mutter, hurrying to her. I drop down beside her and, because I’m an anxious, fatalist fucker, I immediately grab her hand to check her pulse. It’s steady, strong. Okay. Not a life and death thing, then. “You’re mixing extravagant vodka and extravagant champagne? Ugh. Bad taste.”

“I…” She looks up at me. Squints hard, as if trying to focus. “You…”

“It’s Dave,” I say.

“Fuck you,” she slurs, and tries to jerk her hand out of my grasp. “You… fuck you, Dave, I… fuck you.”

I let her tug her hand away and turn my face away to hide my hurt, not that she’s particularly rad at reading emotions right now. “Pretty cold, dude,” I say quietly.

“I don’t… I don’t know why you won’t just, just see that I’m right, and… and do what I say. Do what I tell you to. That’s what you do, Dave, you put up a fuss but then you know I’m right so you just do what I tell you to. It’s how this works, right? You’re an imbecile and I’m smart and so I tell you what to think and it works.”

I lick my lips. My mouth sure is fucking dry. “Yeah,” I agree, because… hey. It’s unflattering as shit, but it’s mostly true. Do I even have any opinions about anything that matters that _haven’t_ been dictated to me by Rose?

I don’t think I do.

She peers up at me, owlish. It’s almost cute, if not for how… yeah.

“Why not just do that?” she asks, helplessly.

“I can’t,” I say.

“Because you -- because _he_ \--” She balls up her hands, places them on her temples, hunches over. Growls so loud she sounds like she’s pretending to be a Doberman. “He’s special. You won’t let him go.”

“... yeah,” I agree.

“I hate it,” she says. “I hate it, Dave, and I hate you.”

“I’m sorry.”

We’re quiet for a moment. I realize that the water is dripping steadily into the tub, so I straighten up to reach over and turn the faucets closed. There’s about an inch of accumulated water in the tub, and I pull the plug and let it run down the drain.

“Hey,” I say, and loop both my arms under one of her armpits. “Fam, you wanna, like, get to bed, here?”

“I need to vomit,” she says, and then, matter-of-factly, turns and begins to do so.

“Fuck, Rose,” I say. I wrinkle my nose. “Gross.”

But I hold her hair for her, fine and soft under my fingers, and when she’s done I flush the toilet for her, and she doesn’t try to fight me when I help her to her feet and get her moving towards her bed.

The penthouse is gorgeous, it really is. But I’ve stayed here before, during one particularly rancid bender or another, and all I can see is pot and excessive drinking and lines of cocaine and, mostly, naked hot people, both those I paid with money to attend and those I only paid with attention. I always checked to make sure they were eighteen, always. I went over their fucking IDs like I was the bouncer at a club and I knew it was a sting night. Twenty-one, whatever. Drink all you want, girls. But the rest of it? Eighteen, dude. Eighteen or get the fuck right home and don’t make me complicit in anything…

Yeah.

I’m a real fuckin’ hero.

The bed has been used. Aggressively. The room still smells like vag, in fact, and I’m hyper-aware of that shit as I smooth the sheets down and help Rose in. I’m thinking about that night in November, when I myself became pretty acquainted with that vag and then henceforth nothing was ever the same again.

I pause halfway through pulling the blankets up over her.

‘The same?’ Usually, when I have thoughts like that, it’s more like… nothing was ever ‘good’ again. But Karkat is only in my life after that night, and so…

“Your friend let me up,” I say. Conversation-like. I tuck the blankets gently around her.

She ruins it, turning violently, sending blankets flying, and buries her face into the other pillow. I get worried about her for a minute, until I hear her say, muffled, “I wanted to get into your head.”

“Well,” I say. I’m looking for some zinger, something off the cuff and totally me. Instead I just kind of wince. “Okay,” I say.

“Don’t know what you see in it…” She shakes her head into the pillow. “Fake. It’s so fake.”

“All sex is fake,” I say, eager for a chance to explain even a tiny little bit of it. “We’re all pretending, always. Hell, sometimes I’m realer with a hooker than I ever am with, like, a fan, or whatever. She’s a pro. She can keep secrets. Or he. You know, let’s not be heteronormative, here.”

“Karkat,” she says. “You’re talking about Karkat.”

“No, actually. Don’t give me that matter-of-fact psychologist shit. Karkat isn’t a hooker, because I never paid him for sex and never had sex with him. Karkat is something else. Karkat is --”

I stop.

I don’t know what Karkat is. A sticky morass of pouty lips and tousled hair and feelings. Mostly feelings. I’ve stopped noticing how gorgeous he is, most days. I don’t see that, anymore. I just see him, all his perfect body and handsome features just melding into a nebulous Karkat-shape to which I’ve pinned my entire heart.

“Karkat is special,” Rose repeats. She finally rolls back over so I don’t have to strain to hear her, and she throws an arm over her eyes. “What am I supposed to do, Dave?” she asks, and there’s real, undeniable pain in her voice.

I swallow down a huge lump. “I don’t know, Rose,” I say, hoarse. “I don’t fucking know.”

“Maybe this is different, so what. So _what_? You should just do what I say.”

“I can’t.”

“Shut up. I know, I know. Because you were right, Dave, you were right and I hate it. Karkat is special, so what, so _what_? You were right.”

I’m not sure what I’m hearing.

Well, except that I’m hearing Rose trying to talk while fucking choking around sobs. I’m definitely hearing that.

“Do you --” I stop.

No, she doesn’t.

Can’t hurt to offer.

“Do you want me to get up there with you?” I ask. “Just to cuddle. Obviously. Fucking obviously. I learned every lesson there is to learn about --”

But,

“Yes,” she’s already saying. “Yes, get up. You’re so far down. You’re on another planet, Dave. Get up and be my big spoon, like we used to.” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t have to all be different. It doesn’t. I don’t understand why we can’t just admit it was a mistake, it was what we both needed in a moment in time, and then just be normal again.”

I’m already halfway wrapped around her. She smells like booze and vomit and, yep, there is is, the telltale scent of vag. The bouquet has got to be the _least_ erotic thing I’ve ever smelled in all my fucking life. I have no desire to do anything, except hold her.

Hold her forever, probably. Until the Empress gets off her ass and drowns us all, like Rose saw. I’ll be here, holding her, while the waters rise around us.

But no.

Because,

1) Karkat is back at the Palazzo, and I’m wrapped up around him, too, all these feelings and emotions and imagined futures and, underneath, I think, something even deeper than that, tied up with a bow.

And,

2) We won’t live to see the Empress drown humanity.

Haha.

I bury my face in her hair.

“What do you mean, I was right?” I ask. “I don’t get it.”

She hiccups and snuggles back against me. I can remember so many times doing this before, both the times when I couldn’t keep my boner in check and the times when it felt like this, almost familial in its innocence. There’s so much weight and history between us. She can’t throw it all away.

“About Karkat,” she says.

“What about Karkat?” I ask.

“He’s different,” she murmurs. “He’s special. If you touch him, Dave, if you do anything with that boy I’ll slit your neck from ear to ear, I’ll give you a new smile, I’ll jab knitting needles so far into your eye sockets they come out the b-back of your skull, but I think I know why you feel the way you do about him. No, no. I know I know, I know I know I know I know.” She laughs helplessly.

I’ve never seen her like this. Wasted, wrecked, incoherent.

“Jesus, Rose,” I whisper. “What did you do to yourself, here?”

“Saw it,” she says. “Saw it, you know? Went deep, tried to get there on my own, and I saw it, saw him, you and him. Tore me apart. Not sad-like, but, you know, physically almost. Feels like being ripped. Reaching back that far and down that deep, but I think we know him, I think we all know each other and it’s not a coincidence. I think nothing is a coincidence, Dave. Nothing, ever.”

“What?” I ask, hoarse.

“If you loved him before, what does it mean if you love him, now?” She’s bleary, barely coherent. “Does that make it different? Does that make it _okay_?”

“What the hell are you saying, Rose?” I press.

“Dave,” she sighs. “Dave, I’m so tired. Keep me on my side, okay? Don’t let me drown in vomit. Bad end.”

And then she’s asleep, leaving me staggered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on [tumblr!](purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com)
> 
> More updates will be coming very soon, hopefully. This goes out to my wife, it's our first anniversary this weekend and we're apart for it so this is one thing I can do -- update her favourite fic!


	34. Open Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

I stay with her.

She’s usually a peaceful sleeper, but she’s snoring and drooling and generally making a big old mess. She occasionally starts awake, but when I whisper her name, worried, into the darkness, she only grunts and goes back to sleep.

I want her to be awake.

I want to talk to her. I want to plumb that brilliant mind for answers, or at the very least, clarifications. Her words keep whirling around in my head. Karkat is special. We knew each other. We all knew each other. Nothing is a coincidence. It’s fucking mad, it’s the ramblings of a drunk woman who was just betrayed by the most important person in her fucking life, but…

But the thing is, it doesn’t feel ludicrous. I feel something echo and pulse and sit warmly and solidly inside of me, a second heart, beating _yes, yes, yes._

Yes, that makes sense.

Yes, that’s right.

Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to remember my whole life. And especially since November 13th, since I fell backwards into Karkat’s arms and felt electricity course through my body like I’d just jammed one of Rose’s knitting needles into a fucking electrical socket.

_Tell me,_ crazy old broad Jade English had said to us with a smile. _Do you believe in past lives?_

If I close my eyes, if I breathe deep, I think I can maybe remember it. It’s all shadows and silhouettes, and some of them look familiar. I think… I think dark hallways, maybe, and bright moons, and…

And that’s it. That’s all I can remember.

If I’m remembering it at all, and not just… I don’t know. Inventing things. Remembering something from a dream.

Closing my eyes, breathing deep, it gets me started into drifting off. I keep coming back with a jerk, panicked, terrified that I let Rose flip onto her back and she drowned in her own vomit, but every time, I find myself holding her tightly and securely, and then I resolve to stay awake, and then I drift off again. I blink and the clock reads 5:11. 5:23. 5:31. All between my eyelids closing and opening, one second to the next.

Rose stops snoring, stops drooling. I don’t hold her quite so tight. After 6:53, I don’t so much doze as sleep, and when I wake up again, it’s 8:11 and there’s no Rose.

I sit up, terrified. “Rose?” I call into the empty room. Where did she go? Oh, god. What the fuck did I do. I shouldn’t have let myself fall asleep, I should have been here for her, she warned me -- “ _Rose_!” I call again, and my voice sounds shrill and fucking petrified.

She enters the room in a swirl of dark cloth.

And she is every bit Rose Lalonde, the gothic fantasy novelist with the genlit sensibilities, the woman who managed to meld Rowling and Steinbeck. Coiffed hair, including requisite high fashion headband, dramatically flowing black dress, oversized glossy black tote bag overflowing with books and knitting. She’s a legend as much as I am, just in totally different circles.

“Hello, Dave,” she says, and I recognize the cool edge in her voice. The desperate intimacy from the previous night is gone, and she’s holding herself at arms length from me. “No, I did not die and then disintegrate into nothingness while you slept. Nor did an ambulance come in to acquire my alcohol poisoning ravaged body without waking you. Obviously.”

“Okay, and I see that, and raise you: you were super fucked up and maybe you wandered off or something and fell down some stairs and also, why you gotta be a dick about it, fam?”

“Because I am still furious at you, Dave Strider, and I need to let that out in any way I can while I deal with a potential, extremely bullshit, apparently supernatural explanation for your behaviour.”

My heart expands and then squeezes in tight, like it’s taking a big breath and letting it out. “Well, that’s legit,” I say weakly.

“I am fine. You are fine. I…”

And then she loses some of her composure. She raises both hands and tucks hair behind both of her ears, sways on her feet, and walks to one of the massive chairs flanking the bed. She pinches the bridge of her nose. She looks at me.

“Dave,” she says. “What do I do? What do I do about you, now?”

I swallow.

“I…” I have always fucking hated that shit. One of my foster dads would do this, give me this long-suffering condescending bullshit. Tell me how I should punish you, Dave. I was, like, twelve at the time, enough of a smartass at this phase of my life to answer, _I don’t know dude maybe I need to be tarred and feathered and pilloried?_ Never the right answer. Not advised.

But a request for self-assessment is a whole lot of bullshit, I tell you. Rose is looking at me expectantly and it’s taking all of my self control not to fall back on that same answer. _You should probably murder me I guess, I seem to recall something about stabbing me through the eye sockets with those knitting needles? Have at it fam cause apparently I’m just trash, now._

That would not be useful or smart or good.

“I don’t know, Rose,” I say, frankly. I try and be honest, here, because I’m not sure how else we’ll ever repair this rift, and I can’t stand that. I can’t stand not having Rose in my life. “I don’t fucking know what to do about any of this, which is why I reached out to you in the first place.”

“That’s not acceptable,” she says, shaking her head. She gives me this look, this pleading-ass sort of look, and I just want to give her anything she wants. Which, in this case, is a reason to either hate me or love me again. I’m not sure I can give the latter, and I can’t bear to release her by playing to the former. “You need to tell me, right now, what you intend. Because you simply can’t just not have a plan, Dave. You have a plan. You have thought about this. If I were to simply agree to continue being whatever it is we are and leave you to your own designs with Karkat, what would you do?”

I open my mouth.

“I’ll know if you’re lying,” she says.

“Fuck, dude, I know that. I’ve known you for thirty fucking years, and I’ve never been able to tell you a lie.” I reach up and run my hand through my hair. The piercing gaze of Rose Lalonde in full gothic makeup and getup is devastating, and this shit -- this is shit I’ve been trying not to think about, exactly, myself.

But, of course, she’s right. I have thought about it. I’ve laid awake, poring over my options. What do you do when you’re in your thirties and in love with a goddamn seventeen year old, if you want to -- you know, be a good person?

“I…” I swallow. I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t know what she wants to hear, and I know that she’s testing me, weighing me, and I don’t know if anything I’ve got is going to be enough. “I’ve thought about just putting him away from me, shutting him out. But he doesn’t want that, and neither do I. He’s saved my life half a dozen times, and I know he’s not in a position to be making decisions or whatever on this shit, but -- but Rose, isn’t it _possible_ that not all seventeen-year-olds are created equal? Can’t someone have been through so much at seventeen or so little at fifty that they’re not so different?”

Her mouth twists into a brutally poisonous line. “Age is just a number,” she murmurs, and her words are acid spattering on my skin.

“No! No, fuck no. No. Rose, I’m not talking about -- consent, or -- no. I have -- never performed any kind of -- ugh, fuck, any sex act of any kind with Karkat and I won’t. I fucking won’t do it. Not until…”

“Until he turns eighteen.”

And there it is, there’s the plan I’ve had cooking in my head. Thinking to myself, his birthday is in July? June? Something like that, and that’s not that far, and…

I swallow.

“Kind of. Yeah. That’s… what I’ve been thinking.”

Rose’s hands tighten in her lap. “You don’t find that… ghoulish, Dave? Just sitting and waiting, looking at the clock, tapping your foot, just waiting for a child to become technically legal?”

Irritation flares, and I sit up, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. “Okay, wait, hold up. What is this, now? ‘Technically legal?’ What does that even mean?”

“I _mean_ that I find it unpleasant, to say the absolute least, that your objection is merely --”

“It’s not! Fuck, Rose, that’s straight up stone cold not what I fucking _said_! You’re hearing something that isn’t happening, here. I -- look. Look.” I clench my teeth and take a breath and try and chill out. She’s looking up at me with all her spirit and gumption and passionate venom, and I just want to hug her.

Huh.

Thought I was going to say ‘slap’ there.

I slump.

“Look. Look,” I repeat, shaking my head. “I’m not -- I get it. I don’t want to think of myself sitting there looking at a calendar and salivating like those fucking whackoffs and the Olson Twins or whatever, like, fucking -- gross, right? Right. That’s not how this is, it’s just -- it’s just, I’m not doing dick until he’s eighteen. And then, once he is…”

I don’t want to finish, but she stares at me.

I shrug helplessly. Just one shoulder; it’s all I can manage. “Once he is, I guess we just… see what happens.”

I wait.

I see her there, considering. I see her thinking about it, I see her weighing. I see her trying to decide what to do. She doesn’t know. She’s at an impasse. Rose cannot compromise, she never could. So what happens, now?

I want to ask --

What about him being special, Rose?

What about… us knowing each other? What about ‘nothing is a coincidence?’ Does that change any of this?

She opens her mouth. My heart starts pounding.

“Do you understand _why_ , Dave? What’s the point in waiting? It’s all arbitrary, isn’t it?” She laughs, and there’s an edge of tears in it. Fuck. Her togetherness act actually fooled me. She tucks hair back, bites her lip. Oxblood lipstick comes off onto one of her teeth. “What’s the difference between six months from now and today?”

I know the answer I have in my heart. But I don’t know if it’s what she wants, and -- and I need to give her that what she wants. I need her to love me again. I need us to be okay.

“I… because…” I fumble. I know this, come on, it’s fucking basic moral shit, Strider, get it _together_. “Well, because of power dynamics, obviously, because -- sex is the biggest exchange of power there is, and, uh.” I sound like I’m making it up, like I don’t believe it, when I fucking _do_ , ugh -- “If nothing else, being eighteen gives Karkat legal power, and that’s not nothing, and…”

Of course, does it, really? He’s still here illegally, we still support him, and now I’m thinking about that shit he threw in Rose’s face, about how she’s taking advantage of him, too, and maybe he’s right about it, and, and, and, what does that mean? What the fuck does that mean?

I don’t know, I don’t --

“Dave. Breathe.”

I breathe.

I slump further, and I fall all the way back onto the bed. It no longer smells like vag. I close my eyes, and I breathe.

“Don’t tell me what you think the right answer is,” she murmurs. Her voice tethers me. I feel myself cling to it, wrapping around those smooth alto tones. “Tell me the real reason, Dave.”

I swallow.

“I --” My voice comes out a bit cracked. I push on, struggling, until like a glass shattering, it all just starts to flow forth. “I just -- I can’t Rose. I can’t be that guy. I can’t do that to him. He says he can make the choice, and maybe he can, but I can’t take the chance that he can’t, and maybe six months _doesn’t_ magically change that, but what if it does? And if it does, I need to wait. I need to wait, if that’s -- if that’s what he needs, because I can’t be the guy who fucks a seventeen year old because I, what, rationalized it to myself? Made it make sense in my head? No. No, I won’t, I won’t. I care about him, and maybe I did know him, maybe he is special, because I won’t hurt him and I won’t be the kind of man who does.”

It’s quiet.

And then I feel her hand on my knee.

I open my eyes.

She stands over me, and her eyes are soft.

“You shouldn't be attracted to him,” she says. “He’s seventeen.”

“I know,” I say, shame filling me, and fuck, do I ever know.

“And I know you think that love is pure and innocent and that’s not wrong, but it is. You shouldn’t love him, either. Dave. Dave, he’s seventeen fucking years old.”

“I know, Rose,” I say again.

But she doesn’t look at me with that rage, that hate. She slowly shakes her head, instead.

“I don’t know,” she says, and looks past me. I twist my head, checking to see if something, someone, might be there. But there’s nothing. “I don’t know. If it was all simple, then I think I’d walk out of here. I don’t know what I’d do next, but you can bet I wouldn’t let you see him ever again.”

_If_ is a very powerful word.

Rose shakes her head, meets my eyes again, and then turns to walk away. “I’ve been busy,” she says, and I hear her shift into business mode. All her feelings and opinions and complications being tucked carefully away so she can bring out precise, rehearsed, careful Rose Lalonde. “Since the blackout on Christmas, and even a little before. Something happened, November 11th. I told you a bit about it. The sinkhole.”

“Right,” I say. “Something -- Crocker family, right? Weird coincidence.”

“Not a coincidence,” she says. “At least, I firmly believe so, anyway. There are simply too many pieces that fit together for it all to be a fluke. I believe it all comes back to two people, you see. Betty Crocker, this alien invader who will become our Empress, and another. Jade English.”

_Do you believe in past lives?_

Rose swirls to look at me, as I carefully clamber up and pull a pillow to my chest.

“You remember?” she asks, arching one perfect brow.

I nod.

Rose nods, too.

“Ms. English was quite the woman. Have you ever heard of SkaiaNet?”

I furrow my brow. The name kind of rings a bell, and I turn it over and over in my head. “Yeah, I think,” I muse. “They make kinda Crocker-ish stuff, right? Uh, not the Hamburger Helper. The other stuff. Cell phones. Hands-free devices. They were pretty prestige stuff, if I recall, though I haven't heard of them for…”

“They went bankrupt three years ago,” Rose says. “Though no one had seen Ms. English since late 2001 or early 2002. Reports vary. She showed up for a board meaning in Sydney, Australia, right after Thanksgiving. Her stock was up. She’d successfully launched a new processing chip for Pentium Computers five months before Crockercorp made their first major tech release. Do you know what that was, Dave?”

“I’m… going to guess it was some sort of processing chip.”

“Exactly. Shortly thereafter, Ms. English was never seen again. SkaiaNet persisted in her absence at first, but their innovation slowly dried up, until they finally could no longer sustain themselves.” She gives me a sick smile. “Crockercorp bought their remaining shares, actually. They desperately wanted control over all of the records and properties. But from what I’ve been able to ascertain, Old Lady English was very, very clever about secure document storage.”

I wait for the next question.

“You _do_ remember her, don’t you, Dave? The questions she asked us? One question, in particular.”

I lick my lips.

“Do you believe in past lives?” I repeat, a fifteen year old ghost’s words on my lips.

“I always have,” Rose says quietly, and she pads over to me. She sinks onto the edge of the bed. “My entire life, I have. Or at least, since the summer we met. It was the only logical explanation, really, for the way I felt when I looked at you. A memory from a past life. I had always imagined us as… oh. Baroque lovers, maybe. After all, who’s to say I was a lesbian in every life? But, now, I think, I had it wrong. There is no past life. There is no shared history. It’s something else, Dave. Something altogether stranger.”

I reach out and grab her hand. She turns it to squeeze mine.

“I stopped trying to see things, when I was young. Reaching for a vision always hurt my head. But I needed to know, Dave. I needed to know why you were doing this. So I drank, and I drank, and I drank, until I was barely in my own head, and that let me float sideways, just a little bit, and then dive back. Or rather, I thought it was back, and it usually feels back, or down, or even up, but never _sideways_.” She shakes her head faintly. “I was so drunk. I barely remember what exactly I saw. But I know I saw… us. And, I think, I think Karkat was there. And a woman, like him, only neither of them were…”

It seems like the right moment, somehow. I reach into my pocket with my free hand, pull out a cell phone, and open that chat client I don’t even remember installing. Pesterchum. I open it up. The last few lines of my conversation with )(er Imperious Condescension glow up at me, and I hand the phone to Rose silently.

She disentangles her hand from mine to page through the conversation, the furrow between her brows growing deeper and deeper by the moment. Her lips part, and I feel a thrill of genuine terror when I see unease clearly written in her eyes.

“Jesus,” she breathes. “Is this all happening faster than I thought?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “See, she talks about… I’m not sure she was calling me from -- from last night, Rose. It sounds fucking crazy, but I think she was talking to me from a long time from now. Something about the way she said shit, I know I’m talking garble-shit right now, but…”

“Garble-shit,” she repeats faintly, scrolling through. “You sound like Karkat.”

My heart contracts.

She hands me back my phone. Her expression is pretty fucking dire.

“I’m behind schedule,” she says. “I need to finish what I’ve started.”

“And what is that?” I ask, but she’s already standing and she has her purse in her hand and she’s throwing all manner of things from around the room into its dark, velvet confines.

“You won’t be able to contact me. Please don’t try. In the meantime, lay low. Don’t leave the Palazzo, not even for food, and don’t take any interviews. Don’t talk to anyone in the industry. Whatever you do, avoid any possibility of contact with Betty Crocker or anyone sympathetic to her agenda. I’ll come see you when I have everything ready, and then --”

She stops. She honest to god freezes, like she’s a fucking statue, just standing there.

“Rose?”

She looks at me. Shakes her head. Heads for the door.

“Good luck, Dave,” she says.

“Hey,” I call. “Wait.”

She pauses, one hand on the latch.

“I…” I swallow hard. “Do… do you hate me, Rose?”

She closes her eyes tight, and I see a tear leak from the corner of one eye. She raises her free hand, brushes it away with a flourish, and smiles sadly at me. “No, Dave,” she says. “Sadly, I have always been entirely helpless to do anything but love you.”

She opens the door, and then stops. “I won’t insult you,” she says, “by demanding that you don’t hurt Karkat. But if you touch him, Dave, if you fucking touch him, I swear to God…”

She shakes her head and is gone.

I sit there for a solid half hour before I move. I find my keys on a table, my shoes by the door, and my car with the valet. I drive home, and I’m hyper aware of tourists with cell phones, of traffic cams, of ongoing shoots. Rose’s scary-ass warning haunts me the whole way home, and I wonder what, exactly, she’s afraid of.

But I think I know.

Karkat is waiting for me.

“Is she okay?” he asks, breathless, and I don’t ask how he knew that I was out there helping Rose.

“I think so,” I say.

He nods, and then frowns, and then sighs, and then blurts, “Are _we_ okay?”

I chuckle faintly, and I shudder, and I run my hand through my hair. “I sure fucking hope so,” I reply.

\- END OF PART 2 -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I hate replying to comments, but I treasure every single one of them. Part two has been enormously difficult to write due to the extremely sensitive subject matter. It was _so_ important to me that I not strawman Rose's position, because she is completely right in so many ways. It's made every single chapter a balancing act of being true to Dave's emotions and torn feelings and the validity of Rose's positions, the real world implications that this all has and the fantastical elements of it.
> 
> Part 3 is the longest of the all and probably the most emotional, so get ready.
> 
> You can follow me on [tumblr](http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com).


	35. Interlude 10: June, 2005 // That’s what happens when you’re in love with your gay best friend.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is ending. Dave Strider can't tell if the bender he's on is because of that, or because of how bad stuff is fucked up with Rose, or just because his own bullshit has finally caught up to him. All he knows is that if the world DOES end today, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing.
> 
> Of course, he can't throw in the towel. His fate is already written. He raises a resistance. He duels the false presidents. He stands against the Empress herself. So maybe that's why Skaia allows a glitch that carries a consciousness across sessions that might save Dave's shitty life.

“You really don’t have to be here this early,” Rose said, rearranging the display of her covers for what had to be the billionth time. “I’m sure there isn’t going to be a single face until at least 10:00 AM. No one is going to get out of bed for this.”

Anyone would get out of bed for this, Dave thought to himself, watching her move. She was always precise and elegant and carefully posed, but there was a purpose and a direction to her that morning. One action flowed like water in the next, she held her shoulders back, she stood with purpose. It had been ages since he’d seen her dressed so nicely, with her thick black and purple makeup carefully applied and her hair so finely coiffed that she looked like a shampoo commercial.

But there was something else, too, when he studied her closely enough. A clipped sort of energy behind her minute adjustments of the display, the way she sat, fiddled with a fountain pen, and then stood, her constantly tucking back that one lock of hair behind her ear.

He wondered what it must be like, to see your dreams just… come true.

“Well,” Dave said, his voice a little hoarse and a little thick. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

She blinked in surprise, and then smoothed her expression and looked up at him with her practiced, fake-as-hell guileless expression. “Have you even read it, Dave?” she asked sweetly.

“Uh.”

Shit, he’d been avoiding this one. He’d told himself he was going to spend the train ride doing just that, going through the advance copy she’d given him, but he’d fallen asleep after one page the first day, and then…

Well, things had gotten shitty and complicated from there.

“I haven’t finished it yet?” he offered with a hapless sort of smile.

“Oh,” she said, and he scanned the word upside down, backwards, frontways, and side to side for any sign of hurt or bitterness or whatnot, but she just seemed genuinely amused? It was hard to tell.

“I’m getting there,” he said, just in case she was just hiding it very well.

“Are you?”

“Yeah, sure, absolutely.”

“I’m very glad to hear that.”

“Cool, yeah.”

“Do you have a favourite scene?”

Fucking hell, did he have a favourite scene? The answer was handily no, since he didn’t think he could get away with saying that the first page’s dissertation on the nature of the self and the magic contained therein was his favourite scene.

“I really like the, uh, the big ole wizard council bit, you know, the part where… all the wizards get to together and discuss what to do, uh, do about the upstart folks who are griefing them and whatnot…”

Rose looked startled, and then snorted in a laugh. “I -- all right. You didn’t read it, so I think it’s probably a mark against me that that actually is a scene in this book. Hm. I will endeavour to be less predictable with the sequel.”

“Which you’ve already been paid for!”

“Yes,” Rose said, and there it was again, that twinge of nervous energy about her as she gave him a tight smile and turned back to her display. Thirty covers looked back at them, chessboard and lizard pieces and strange androgynous hunched figure staring back at them. He looked quickly away. Something about the art was damned unnerving, which he thought was a feature? Maybe. He’d been too nervous to ask.

Rose laid one slender index finger against her chin. “Do you think this is too many books on display?”

“Is that a thing?”

“Too many books might look as if I’m hoping to _sell_ too many books, Dave. Thirty? I don’t know. My agent assures me that the pre-release buzz is strong, but my research has shown that a first book signing in a local story can expect an average of twenty book sales to be considered a successful launch.”

Dave shrugged helplessly. “Take a few off, then?”

“But doesn’t that show potential readers a defeatist attitude? Surely such an overstuffed display case merely shows my confidence in my wares. It might be a mistake to show less than that.” She laid each hand on a different stack of copies, drumming her fingers in time. “I should take some out,” she said firmly, after a long moment of silence. “No one will be here, Dave. Dave. What if no one is here?”

“Geez, hey.”

He moved to her side, and he took her by both shoulders, and he turned her around. She gazed up at him, her expression strangely open. She never looked like that, never so vulnerable. She was…

God, fuck, she was so amazing. She was striking and strong and confident and the love of his fucking life.

Fuck.

“Hey,” he repeated, squeezing gently. “Hey, people are going to come, okay? Like your agent says, buzz! Buzz is good. And that advance for the sequel, right? Right. People are totally going to be here. You are going to sell fifty copies, I promise. I’ll buy all fifty.”

“Oh, good,” she said, lilting, but there was a softness in her eyes and her smile that warmed him to the core. “That might almost make up from the train tickets I bought you and Alex to get here in the first place.”

Dave swallowed and forced a smile and stepped back. “Right,” he said. He turned his face away from her so that she wouldn’t see his expression change. “Hella, that’s been my plan all along, you know. Pay you back for fucking… twenty-whatever years of loans and shit in book sales. Boost that New York Times ranking, hell yeah. Long game exposed.”

But she saw it.

Of course she saw it.

“Dave?” she asked, gently, and he felt her at his back. “Where _is_ Alex? I assumed he was just running late again, but the store is opening in…” He felt her raise a hand to check her watch. “Oh, god. Five minutes. Haha. I -- what’s going on? He’s coming?”

His first instinct was to just lie, but god knew, then she’d just be waiting for the guy to show up and be disappointed when he didn’t, so Dave would have to either make another excuse or tell the truth, and repeat ad infinitum until she eventually got it out of him so -- whatever.

“Yeah, no.” He took a deep breath. “He might come by later, he said, but, uh, probably not. He doesn’t… really want to see me, right now.”

“Oh.”

“It’s my fault, honestly.”

“I assumed as much, Dave. Alex has been very long-suffering, for the most part. I only wonder -- that is, will he want to see you, later? At some future date a week or a month from now? Or is he… well, is he rather done seeing you, altogether? Is the situation one of permanence?”

“I think so.”

Everything was just quiet and shitty and terrible for about twenty seconds, and then Dave felt Rose place one hand against his back, and then step closer, and then lean her weight against him, her cheek between his shoulderblades.

“I’m sorry, Dave,” she said quietly.

“It’s cool, don’t do that.” The feeling of her so close and so kind made him ache.

“I thought… well, no. I didn’t. But I hoped…”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What happened?”

It wasn’t nosiness or prying so much as an invitation. Tell me if you want, Dave. I want to hear if it you want to tell it. And he did want to tell it. He wanted to talk about how they’d gotten off the train for an hour in Philadelphia and it had been a fight five minutes in, and Alex had put his hands in his hair and erupted, with feeling: _”You’re never going to care about me the way you care about her, are you?”_ And then, after that, after he couldn’t just lie and be like no way dude you’re totally my number one priority fuck Rose haha, there really hadn’t been anywhere else to go. They’d gotten back on the train and Alex had traded seats with someone else.

And…

Whatever, it had been a long time coming. That’s what happens, when you’re in love with your gay best friend. Nobody else really works out, because it doesn’t take long for them to figure out that that whole thing isn’t really going anywhere. It had been pretty dumb to think it might be different with a guy.

“Let’s call it irreconcilable differences,” Dave said, breathing out and shrugging and feeling her hum against his back. “Look, it was pretty inevitable, right? We’ve been together -- what, almost three years? Time was coming to either shit or get off the pot on the commitment front and I’m not ready to be an old married gay, you have to go to Canada to get that shit done, just a mess, really, total bullshit.”

“Should I be mad at him for it? I’ll be positively fuming all morning, if you want.” Her voice rumbled against him, and he couldn’t help but crack a smile at her tone, so pointed and light. “I’ll not enjoy a moment of my big day out of sheer hatred for my former lawyer who broke your heart so utterly. I’ll even snub him if he shows up for a book signed, how about that?”

And that’s a nice thought, her sitting there feeling bad for him and wielding her cold rage like a rapier against his enemies.

But.

But Alex didn’t break his heart. It was pretty much the opposite of that. The last thing the poor guy deserved was the object of his completely rational and justified jealousy being crabby with him.

“Nah,” Dave said. “If you’re going to be shitty with anybody, I’m the one who deserves it.”

“All right,” she said, and moved away. He hated the feeling of her gone, wished she’d come back and hug him, but as always, it was a dumb, stupid morass of bad ideas.

“I think,” he said, watching her rearrange minute, invisible problems with her display. “I think I might be done with dating, for now. I’m real bad at it.”

“Stop. You’re fine.”

“Sure, at the beginning parts. But then once things get serious…” He shoved his hands into his pockets. Shrugged. “Never been great at it, you know? Never in my whole fucking life. Just end up fucking with people’s hearts, which I don’t want to do. I should start just seeing people who… you know. Expect nothing. Are there for the same thing I am.” He turned and gave her a smirk. “You know. Gross stuff. I can go in for just the gross stuff.”

“Gross,” Rose replied sweetly, without missing a beat.

A loud buzzing went through the store intercom, and Rose looked up. For just one moment, between the conversation and the moment, her guard fell completely, and Dave could see the genuine anxiety on her face.

Fuck, here he was, messing up this big moment with his bullshit.

“The store will be opening in one minute,” the manager’s nasal voice announced, and Rose braced herself backwards against the edge of the table, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath.

“Hey,” Dave said, crossing to her. “Look. It’s gonna be fine, right? It’s going to be fuckin’ fine. It’ll be slow in the morning, sure, but then people will hear about it and get out of bed and it’ll pick up and if Alex comes by you can totally guilt him into buying, like, five books to get you up to fifty. Okay? Okay.”

She laughed quietly and softly, looking up at him a moment later with her violet eyes wide.

“This is everything I’ve wanted, Dave,” she said, quietly. “On the worst nights of my life, I’d imagine… this. Sitting down to sign books, books I _wrote_ , for strangers. What do I do, after it’s done? Whether it goes well, or it goes badly… either way, where do I go from here?”

“You write that sequel.” The response came automatically to his lips, and he was so relieved he could have cried to see the light come into her eyes. He smiled widely, laughing out a relieved chuckle. Okay. Nailed it. “Cause, uh, I gotta find out what happens to the, you know, the complacency. Does it get less complacent? Or is this really how it ends, all the learned just in their most complacent state, and --”

“Stop, you’re insufferable!” she swatted his shoulder.

Six hours later, Rose and Dave looked over three large empty boxes that had been filled to the brim with books. Rose’s fingers were stained with ink, and she looked… hollowed out with awe and wonder and glorious, sweet triumph.

“I think,” Dave breathed, barely able to believe it, himself. “I think that, uh, that New York Times rating joke might not be such a long shot after all.”

Behind them, a voice says, “Are you Rose Lalonde? Is this for Complacency of the Learned? A friend read it this morning and said I need to come and…”

Rose just stared down into the empty boxes, looking somewhere between about to cry and like she was travelling through all the nebulas and stars and glories of space, seeing the greatest wonders in the universe inside the gutted remains of cardboard containers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people have asked about my anniversary -- it was the 12th! A lot has been going on in our lives so the updates haven't been as rapidfire as I hoped, but we're getting there! I have four more planned before I get to the end of my batch I have outlined for my wife's gift and then it's back to normal update (lack of) schedule >_>
> 
> Follow me on [my tumblr](http://purplepurpleunicornsparkle.tumblr.com)!


	36. You Don't Want to be High Like Me

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \-- 

CG: UH.  
CG: HI.  
TG: fuckin  
TG: uh oh  
CG: WHAT DO YOU FUCKING MEAN, 'FUCKING UH OH?'  
TG: i fucking mean what i fucking said nerd  
TG: five bell alarm sort of uh oh  
TG: for obvious reasons  
CG: OH, REALLY? OBVIOUS REASONS, IS THAT SO? WOW, HOW ABOUT YOU ENLIGHTEN ME ON THESE EVER SO OBVIOUS REASONS, DAVE, SO I CAN SEE HOW OBVIOUS THEY ARE?  
TG: ok  
TG: when you send a text thats exactly one word long instead of vomiting a crazy grey rage hairball all over my phone i start to fucking panic but then its like nah its cool give him a sec hes just laying down tracks for this choo choo train of bullshit hes prepping here  
CG: OH, FUCK YOU.  
TG: but then a second text goes off and you peek and its another single word  
TG: and its like oh hold up  
TG: the fuckin universe is off its axis here sweet  
TG: everyone into the escape pods  
TG: all paradox space is about to collapse  
CG: JUST TELL ME WHEN YOU'RE FUCKING DONE SO I CAN GET A WORD IN.  
TG: everyones running around  
TG: screaming  
TG: waving their arms about like those stoked noodle dudes outside car dealerships but they aint advertising sick four door coupes son  
TG: theyre anticipating the end of life as we know it  
CG: I SOMEHOW CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE STILL GOING? HOW DO I KEEP BEING FUCKING SURPRISED BY THIS SHIT?  
TG: they saw the signs  
TG: didnt believe them  
TG: fuckin regretting it now let me tell you  
TG: they could have prepared for this if theyd obeyed the prophecies  
TG: like when grey text comes in short bursts instead of literally fucking neverending screeds but  
TG: hubris  
TG: its a hell of a drug  
CG: DAVE.  
CG: I LOVE YOU.  
CG: ...  
CG: DAVE?  
CG: ARE YOU GOING TO FUCKING ACKNOWLEDGE THAT SHIT?  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK?  
CG: DAVE!  
CG: OKAY, YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK YOU AND FUCK THE METEOR YOU BLASTED DOWN TO YOUR WORTHLESS PLANET ON YOU REEKING CLUMP OF DISCARDED WASTE.   
TG: okay hey im back  
TG: had to run to the toilet  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK????????  
CG: ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????  
CG: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? IS THIS A JOKE? AM I ON WITH TROLL ASHTON KUTCHER? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK??  
TG: yeah sorry dick move  
TG: in my defense i threw up in the sink  
CG: HOW DOES THAT MAKE IT ANY BETTER?  
TG: hold up im fucking this all up  
TG: ugh  
TG: let me try and  
TG: blah  
TG: ugh  
TG: argh  
CG: ARE YOU TRANSFORMING INTO A BOG MONSTER, RIGHT NOW? AM I GOING TO NEED TO FERRY YOU TO YOUR TRUE AND ETERNAL HOME IN THE WET STINK FIELDS I SAW YOUR PITIFUL SPECIES CRAWL OUT OF MILLENIA AGO?  
TG: dude stop  
TG: look  
TG: sorry  
TG: because like  
TG: well first of all you do a whole lot of insulting my planet and my species considering that as i understand it you were pretty much the literal architect of the whole situation down there  
CG: EAT ME.  
TG: and secondly  
TG: i  
TG: love you too  
TG: please delete that text and never look at it again and lets pretend this didn't happen thanks cool ill be right over and we can make out instead  
CG: WHAT IS HAPPENING??  
TG: stand by  


My phone buzzes. I grab at it, raising it to my face, expecting to see another line of grey text.

_SNOWFALL WARNING FOR BEVERLY HILLS_ , warns my iPhone in very serious bold text.

I sit up.

For a second, I’m in two places at once, holding two separate phones, reading two separate screens, sitting on two different chairs. I wince, closing my eyes tight as my vision doubles and my brain starts doing loop de loops in my skull. I press fingers against my temple. Shake my head slightly.

When I open my eyes again, everything just seems... normal.

Except for the snow.

I'm laid out on a chaise-lounge in a glassed in balcony on the third floor. It's a nice spot, and I've been hanging out here a lot, lately. It faces the sunset, has a perfect view of the stars, and, best of all, is climate controlled. The whole thing provides a pretty rad, panoramic view of the two least common things to see in LA.

1\. Heavy cloud cover, a cursed-ass sight on its own.

2\. The whole snow situation. Obviously.

Big, fat flakes drift lazily down from the slate grey sky. When they hit the window, they slowly melt into big ole drops of water, which trail slowly down until they meld with the moulding at the base of the windows.

"What the fuck," I mutter.

I climb to my feet and take a few steps up to the window. I press my fingers against the surface, then gasp and jerk back, shaking my hand out. Fuck, that's cold. I've set the temp in here warm enough to keep back the unseasonable freezing weather we've been having lately, and the juxtaposition between the jungle temperature inside and the snowy landscape out there is a shock to the system.

Snow clings to blades of grass. Without staff on hand to keep everything nicely manicured, my perfect lawn is more of a field at this point, and if I squint I can make out snowflakes setting up shop all down the stalks until they look like tall, skinny russian teacakes. The tiled areas have already been painted white, and the roof of the guest house down below just looks like a big slab of white felt. The pool furniture ruffles in the wind. The only thing untouched by the madness are the pools themselves. The snow touches the surface and disappears, like cotton candy on the tongue.

I lift my phone and tap on the alert.

**A SNOWFALL WARNING FOR LOS ANGELES COUNTY HAS BEEN ISSUED. THIS WARNING WILL PERSIST FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. ACCUMULATIONS OF UP TO 2 INCHES ARE EXPECTED.**

"Holy shit," I breathe.

I scroll down the comments.

holy shit yes does this mean no school tomorrow???  
hell yeah it does. hey everyone bring something to slide with & meet at the top of eldred st @ highland park tonite even nerds are invited  
  
  
Does anyone know what the status is on public transit? I've never left LA and i really don't feel comfortable driving in this :/  
website says buses and metro rail are still up and running for everything in city limits not sure about taxis, think it depends on the individual company?  
Thanks. I need to get home from spin class and it's way too far to walk in this weather. I'll try the metro!  
  
  
wtf????? i was supposed to be going to the beach this weekend lmao  
  
  
This really brings me back!! The last time we had weather like this was in January 1962 :) I remember it so well! What a lovely surprise for Valentine's day! I just hope we can all stop complaining about global warming, now! Sometimes weather is just weather :)  
have you been paying like zero attention to the news? global warming literally was real. we just fixed it  
Betty Crocker fixed it, you mean.  
<3<3<3<3 Betty  
omg she really did it too i didn't believe any of that shit but eee snow in la this is so cool  
I wouldnt say she fixed it. It seems to me like she only provided the technology to help us fix it ourselves. Our taxes are paying for her ozone thickeners. And besides shes been living on earth in the US so long shes practically a citizen.  
so what you're saying is america fuck yeah????? hahahaha  
nah fuck you dude she fixed earth she's the best  
What nobody is saying and yet everyone should be is damn how obvious it is that this 'betty crocker' bitch caused this shit in the first place. yall so stupid an actual space alien invades earth and then things start going wrong and the aliens have the super convenient technology like oh my god am i the only fucker on earth who's seen more than one episode of v  
V for Vendetta?  
really? no. v. it's a show. super relevant right now. watch the original instead of the remake it was shit. elizabeth mitchell was pretty hot tho. anyway all im saying is beware the guy who diagnoses you and then sells you the cure  
So... beware doctors?  
sure. them too. wouldn't be surprised if all capitalist systems were in on it, at this point.  
Oh, because communism is so much better? Hey, explain to me why no communist revolution has ever ended in something other than abject human misery? I'll wait.  
lol its not my job to teach you the basics about --  


I quickly shut off my phone. I've seen _that_ rabbithole before, usually while rubbernecking forums for my own movies to see the totally deep and complex philosophy I inject into them. I think I've mostly got the point, anyway.

That being, shit is fucked up.

"Rose," I murmur. "Where the fuck are you?"

I lean my forehead against the glass, and then hiss and jump back. Right. Cold. Forgot about that.

It's been about a month since that night in the hotel. It's been the longest goddamn month of my life.

For so many reasons.

Like, for example, the ominous warning she left me with. Avoid cameras. Easy to say. I didn't even realize before she put the fear in me just how many cameras were in this fucking state. It wasn't just paparazzi looking to get some snaps of the famous playboy-turned-recluse director Dave Strider. It was everything. Shoots on sidewalks. Tourists taking snaps on their phones to share on Facebook and Instagram. Hell, even something as small as an old pic as my profile photo on websites has given me pause, made me switch to some bullshit sunset shot, instead.

Rose didn't explain why we were scared of cameras, but I can pretty much guess. The nail-bitingly, bowel-liquifying conversation I'd had with one )(IC never got far from my mind. It's cast a sort of spell on me, and I find myself bringing it up to reread it at all hours. I've practically got the fucking thing memorized.

_facial recognition took jus bout bait seconds to find u, dave strider_ , she'd written. And, _got the viewport working._

I flick my finger across the neon green mini post-it note I'd taped to my phone camera. Didn't take a real genius to put that shit all together. She was a space alien. She had a space _ship_. If creepy tech nerds can hijack cameras to try and get a glimpse of a boob, how easy must it be for someone like her?

Yeah.

And yeah, hell, that wasn't even all. The cameras, the isolation, the paranoia, the sense of constantly being watched and trying to hide from it, that shit was wild, but the rest doesn't just go away.

Like Rose. 

"Hey, did you see -- oh my god, why is it a million degrees in here? Was this really necessary? I'm turning the thermostat down, I hate this, why are you like this? It's -- ninety? How hot is ninety. I hate Fahrenheit _so_ much. You _do_ realize you're the only country on this entire fucking _planet_ that still uses this shit, don't you? Celcius has been compulsory in Morocco since 1923. _Nineteen twenty-three_ , Dave! Think about that number for a goddamn second and then just unhinge your jaw and start screaming about how stubborn you fucking Americans are. Both of us could have lived three times since 1923! In three lifetimes, you dumbfucks haven't even tried to catch up and have, in fact, chained yourself to the fucking behemoth rotting corpse of this obsolete system! Fuck! I'm turning it to sixty, however much that is."

And Karkat.

"It's cold." I pitch my voice into a plaintive whine, sprawling back down onto the chaise-lounge. "I'm a fragile desert-dwelling creature, Karkat, you know this."

"I'm from the actual fucking Sahara, dimwit. Ugh! Look at you. Get up. Did you see this shit?"

I loll my head with exaggerated bonelessness to look at him upside down. He's glowering down at me, his hands on his hips, his jaw set and his lips in a thin line.

"Hi, Karkat," I say.

"Don't 'hi, Karkat' me," he snaps. He snaps his chin up and focuses his attention straight ahead, on the window. As he does, his harsh expression softens a little bit. "It's unbelievable."

"Yeah, pretty crazy."

"What's the point of it?"

"The point?" I stifle a laugh. "Uh, I'm not sure there's a _point_ , Karkat. You know. It's weather, it's like, the sky." I raise my voice a bit, giving up on not laughing at his phrasing. "Hey sky, are you trying to make some sort of statement with this display, or --"

He shoves the chaise with both hands and all his strength, sending me scooting forward almost a foot. I gasp through my laughter, grabbing both sides so I don't go flying off from inertia. These cushions are satin, yo. Basically a slip-and-slide.

"Shut up. Fuck off." He crosses to the window, putting both hands up against the glass. He doesn't jerk away like I did. "I just mean... it seems pretty insane, right? Today of all days? It's almost like there's some kind of meaning behind it."

I turn away. "Nah," I mutter. It's less funny, all of a sudden. "Just Betty Crocker fucking the world with her big doom-cock."

"I guess," he says.

I push myself up from the chaise, swinging my legs over the side. "You cooking tonight, or should I order in."

He turns to look at me, crossing his arms and leaning against the glass. "I've never seen snow before," he says.

"Chinese good?"

"Have you?"

 

I rub at my nose and stand up. "Uh, yeah. Sure. I spent a lot of time in Boston while Rose was at Harvard. And then a lot of time in New York when she moved there after school and after the legal shit was taken care of. Even lived there for a bit, but I couldn't take the cold. But sure, yeah. Saw a lot of snow. Saw the big Christmas tree outside Rockefeller Plaza. Did the skating thing. Went on a carriage ride in Central Park while freezing my junk off. All that shit."

His mouth pulls off in one strange direction, and I can't read his expression. I wish I could, and at the same time, I'm glad I'm still not fully fluent in his body language. Ignorance is bliss, after all. Or so they say.

"That sounds nice," he says. "Romantic."

Yeah, nope.

"Chinese it is, then," I declare, turning and hauling ass out of there.

He's on my heels. "Dave," he says.

"I like Moo Goo Tai Pan." I keep moving, keeping my eyes doggedly forward. "And boneless garlic spare ribs. Maybe some Chow Mein? I don't know, could give or take that one depending on what you're feeling like. What do you think? What are you in the mood for?"

"You," he says.

His voice rushes over me. My spine tingles all the way down, tail to brain stem, and my throat gets real dry all of a sudden. My chest constricts. My stomach ties in knots. It's a full body experience.

For a second, I indulge in what I _want_ to happen next:

I spin around, pulling him into my arms. He's solid and soft and warm. Four months and good living have made a big difference, and I don't expect to feel a skinny little underage hooker in my arms. I bury my face in the crook of his neck, run my hands down his back. He sighs in bliss and gratitude.

"Dave," he breathes, just before I kiss him.

I angle my mouth and press my tongue to his lips. He lets me in instantly. My hands come down to cup his perfect ass, and I pull him against me, but he's not just taking it. His fingers are already clawing at my shirt, hauling it up over my head. His nails are hard and sharp and feel amazing scratching down my shoulderblades. He whines out through his nose, and I groan deep into his lungs.

And then I take the entire perfect fantasy and throw it into the boiler where it belongs. It smells so sweet while it burns, and I breathe in the smoke, making it part of me, and dissolving the images and feelings and desires with it, leaving me walking down a flight of stairs and Karkat following after me like nothing happened.

Rose would be proud of me. This visualization stuff I've been reading about online is actually working. Guess all I ever needed was a good reason to really knuckle down and try it. Like a conviction to not commit statutory rape.

"Not cool," I say, my voice sounding surprisingly clear and strong. "There are rules, dude."

" _Your_ rules," he says, his voice bitter and frustrated and crackling with barely restrained shit. Yeah, well, I know that feel, my guy, and I've gotta be the adult here, literally, and handle it. "I hate your rules. I never agreed to them."

"Yeah, well."

"Dave," he says, his voice plaintive in a way that kills me. "It's Valentine's Day. It's the best holiday. And this is so -- _stupid_! It's fucking stupid, and you know it!"

"Hard disagree."

"Do you know what my Valentine’s Days have been like before this? God, it's idiotic! This is the first time I've ever known someone I've _wanted_ to enjoy the day with, and it's the first time I'm not getting anything out of it!" He growls like an anguished animal. "You're so worried about not hurting me. Don't I get a say in it? If I were still back in Ibiza, I'd be on my third client for the night!"

I stop.

I don't even know where I'm going, honestly. Running away, I think. I have it in my head that I have to get to the phone to call up China Wok and put in that order, but, of course, it isn't 1995 anymore, and I can just use my cell phone, because that's how things work now.

I turn around.

He's planting like he's getting ready for a fight, face all scrunched and fists all balled. He's pissed. He's been pissed since I got up early this morning just so I could avoid seeing him first thing. Truth is, he's been angry at me for a month now. Since I started putting this... distance. No more cuddling while watching movies in the viewing room. No more scooting our chairs together when we eat. Definitely no more discussing the steamy scenes in Juliet Harlowe books. And absolutely no hauling me out of the pool and then kissing me in a way I'd never been kissed, breathing life back into me and pulling me back from the edge.

"Dude," I say, pleading. I reach out to grab both of his hands in mine, and as I hoped, the contact seems to drain some of the fury from his form. His shoulders unbunch a little. His mouth goes slack. "Dude, come on. You gotta stop."

"Why don't I get a say?" he asks, his voice barbed with a million little nails.

I wince, each one of them scraping and cutting. "Fam, hey. We talked about this. After the pool, after Rose. You _do_ get a say, and I've heard what you're saying loud and clear and it's valid as fuck, okay? It's not about you. It's about me. This is _my_ thing. This is me, not being the guy who does the thing. This is about me being... different. Better. Good."

He keeps eye contact for only a second before dropping his eyes. The rest of the fight goes out of him. He just breathes, his shoulders moving. "Yeah," he says, finally. "I know. I know! We did talk about it. I just..."

He squeezes my hands, and I have to drop them. His arms fall limp at his sides. I hear him suck at his teeth.

He looks back up. "I just thought maybe today would be the day it changed. It seemed fucking perfect, you know. Romantic." He shakes his head so hard his curls fly. " _Stupid,_ " he says.

The self-loathing sort of hurt in his voice fucks me up good, like a machete going through my heart. Urgh.

"Hey," I say. "Come on."

I take his hand again -- just one, this time -- and I pull him in a new direction.

We go through the ivory and crimson parlour, out of the hallway behind it. His hand is warm in mine, and his steps are almost in sync with my own as we move. I come to a patio door and throw it open.

The cold air instantly smashes through the thin protection of the pyjamas I'm still lounging around in, and I hiss. "Ah, fuck," I gasp out. "Fuck this, I moved to LA for a reason. What the fuck, Karkat? Why is this happening to me?"

"It's weather, Dave," he replies sweetly. He raises his voice. "Hey sky, are you trying to annoy one fuckbreath with this display, or what?"

"Okay, that's a pretty good burn. I like how you turned my thing back around on me. Solid dovetailing, ten out of ten."

I drop his hand and move outside. Soft golden and violet lights stream up from the once carefully manicured trees and hedges that line the path. Things have gone a little wild, and the snow on the lamps makes the light feel wan and ghostly.

There isn't much snow. Nothing like what I saw outside the Rockefeller. But Jesus, it really is freezing. I hop from one slipper-clad foot to the other as I head out. They're pretty sturdy slippies, and it still reminds me of walking on a bed of coals, which I have totally done, natch.

When I turn around, Karkat is venturing out as well, looking like an uncertain woodland creature. He moves carefully, watching with fascination as his sneakers crunch against the fresh coating. He doesn't seem particularly bothered by the low temperature. It can't be much below freezing, maybe thirty-one degrees or something. Still, he's right about one thing. That boy is from the literal African desert, or near enough to it. And he just strides out into the falling snow while I wrap my arms around my middle and stamp my feet for warmth.

"I don't get it," he says slowly. He reaches out a hand, palm side up, to let flakes fall onto his skin. He smiles faintly as they melt. "I thought the theory was that she was going to make things hotter. I pretty much remember you describing Rose's vision of her plans as 'doing a dutch oven on the Earth.' Which I've had to live with this entire time, so thank you for that."

"Oh, that's rich. That's fucking rich, Karkat, you're going to take issue with _my_ scatological metaphors? Unbelievable."

"So why the snow?"

I raise my eyes to look up and around. Evening is starting to gloam around us, I think, though it's hard to tell with the cloud cover like it is. Maybe it's just our position in the out of control growth of the hedge maze blocking out the sun, wherever it is.

"I dunno," I say. "But it makes you think. Was reading some comments on the weather alert, and one thing's for sure, it's got people talking about her, good and bad. Maybe she just needs to convince people that what she's doing is actually working. She didn't get control over everything, after all, right? Just contracted with the UN and some major governments. Nasa and shit. Maybe she has to show it's working."

"Maybe," Karkat agrees. He looks up and turns in a slow circle, leaving a spiral in the snow at his feet. His laces are undone. They make marks like the tails of mouse tracks. "... I feel bad liking it so much. It's really beautiful. I know she made it. And she -- I hate her, Dave, I fucking _hate_ her. Something about her makes me..." He wraps arms around his middle, his hands buried in the too-long sleeves of his hoodie. And he shakes his head. "But I'm grateful for this, at least."

"Yeah," I agree.

I bend down, scoop up a giant fluffy mass of snow with my bare ass hands, and fling it in his direction.

He jumps back, sputtering. "What the hell?"

It barely hit him, really. I think he's more surprised than anything else. If anyone should be screaming here, it's me. I wave my hands furiously to get rid of all the literal ice water clinging to me. "Ah, hell, fucking shit, that's fucking cold!"

"Of course it is, it's _ice_! And it's on my face, so I absolutely don't want to hear a word about how your poor fucking fingers are chilly!"

I hold up my hands weakly. "But I'm an _artist_ , Karkat. I need my fingers."

"Anyone who considers your bullshit movies to be any kind of art needs to be checked into a mental institution until they waste away and die there."

"Okay, but this is actually freezing, this was a terrible idea."

"It's about to get more terrible!" he snaps, and then I'm getting a cloud of ice in my face.

Oh, cool, fuck this shit.

"Argh, fuuuck!"

See, this is actually exactly what I had in mind, more or less, but I'm still going to lay down in the snow and die here because I wasn't prepared for just how cold cold could actually be.

"Okay, okay, hold up," I cry, lifting the icicles that have replaced my fingers in a T position. "Time out."

I dare to open my eyes and check out Karkat's situation. He's moulding a giant ball of snow using his hoodie cuffs as mittens, which is both impressive and terrifying. He's getting some real impressive volume with that thing. Dense and solid, like.

I think of getting it in the face and go down on both knees in the snow in an instant.

"Fuck, this was a terrible idea," I say, looking up at him and putting all the pleading desperation I've got into my voice. "I thought it would be cool and romantic and definitively not sexual if we had a snow fight sort of situation and now I'm regretting, uhhh, everything. I'm so cold and I don't want you to hit me in the face, might I please go inside."

He juggles the snowball from one hand to the other. "I'm thinking fuck that?" he says it thoughtfully. "You started this!"

"Okay, but, counterpoint! You got me back."

He shakes his head firmly. "That is not even a little bit equivalent, okay? You knew it was coming, and I was acting on reaction time, so it wasn't even a very good hit. You got me way worse than I got you."

The snow is soaking through my knees. These pyjamas are satin. I really did not consider the endgame of this plan.

That seems to be a pattern for my life, and it hits me like a truck.

"Hey," I say. "Look. It's not fair that I'm just leaving you hanging on a thread like this."

He blinks, pausing from his polishing of his deadly weapon to frown down at me.

"Yeah, so, I think I just had a low-key epiphany?" I rub at the back of my neck, and I hate it, because my hands are cold. This is the exact sort of shit I should be on the lookout for, here. "I don't always... think things through. So when I told you that I was gonna have to be hands off for a bit, I didn't give you a timeline, or like... really make it clear what the eventual plan was at all. Mostly because I didn't have one."

His eyebrows are pulled all the way down. "I'm listening," he says.

"Can I get up?" I ask.

"Fuck that. I like this."

"Asshole."

"Keep talking."

I shake my head. "Look, the thing is, I think it's legit that you're upset. I didn't tell you dick, dude, and it was pretty reasonable to hope for... you know. Hope. This whole thing is so fucked up."

"I never said it wasn't."

"I owe you enough that I should be thinking ahead. Being clear. Rose asked me -- what I plan to do. And I kind of knew the answer. It's skeevy, don't get me wrong, but I think it's the only one that makes sense." I suck in a breath through my teeth. "Your birthday..."

"June 23rd," he says.

"You'll be eighteen. And, wow, do I ever feel like a dirty old bastard standing on that line and rubbing my hands together and drooling and popping a boner waiting for some kid to magically turn some magical number and then magically be totally a-ok to stick my dick into --"

"I'm not a kid! You know that I'm legally an adult in Morocco _and_ Spain, right, you Ameritrash fuckwad? By every definition that matters to _me_ \--"

"But we've been through this, and it's not about you. It's about me." I shift on my knees and wince. "Can I please get up?"

He thinks about it for a long moment. "One second," he says.

He tosses his snowball into the air, underhand, and I raise my chin to watch its arc. I realize _just_ too late that Karkat has pretty good aim, and then the entire ball explodes against my nose. And it fucking goes _everywhere_. It's in my hair. My mouth. Down the collar of my pyjamas, up my nose, fuck, it's even in my goddamn ears.

I spit and gasp and blink away snow in my eyelashes. It clings stubbornly. "Fuck!" I howl. "That's fucking cold!"

"Now you can get up," he says, taking a step back.

I have to use my hands to leverage myself back to a standing position. It's the worst thing that ever happened to me. "Oh my god," I gasp through chattering teeth. "What was I thinking? Oh my god. Couldn't I have worn a fucking coat for this? Fuck!"

Karkat just stands back, arms folded, watching me with a smug little grin on his face.

"You're a dick," I say. "A monster. You're enjoying this."

"I'm sure not hating it!"

"How are you not freezing? You're from fucking Africa!"

He shakes his head. "God, you are such a whiny white guy."

About ten minutes later, we're inside. I'm wrapped in five blankets and wearing a new set of jammies. Pretty sure the nice satin red ones are fucked. There is ice in the deep ass grain of the fabric on that shit at this point. Karkat is pouring hot chocolate into a set of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff mugs I got from my production manager as a gift. They're terrible and pretty structurally unsound, but the smell is amazing and they're, at the very least, not leaking everywhere.

I dial China Wok while he slides my cup onto the table and sits across from me with his own. He wraps his hands around it and breathes in the steam. I order Moo Goo Tai Pan and boneless spare ribs and decide, fuck it, we're getting that Chow Mein after all. It sounds dope.

I hang up and set my phone on the table.

"So," he says the minute I take my hand off it. "My birthday."

"... yeah," I say.

"I think what you're trying to say is that we're just friends until my birthday. Until I'm eighteen, a completely arbitrary date that I don't even think has any meaning and is completely fucking _irrelevant_ in _both_ cultures I've lived in, but because it's important to you and it'll make you feel better and maybe make you realize that you're not just garbage in an expensive suit and terrible shades, I'm supposed to just accept it."

"Basically," I say.

He drinks his hot chocolate in silence for a bit, and I pick up my own. I sip at it. Rich and creamy and just a little bit spicy. Amazing, like everything he makes.

"Is this from a package?" I ask.

"You think I make anything from a fucking package?" he shoots back.

Right, dumb question.

“Okay, well. It's really good.”

He looks like he might do that thing where he bristles and makes a whole big deal about nothing, just to avoid having to accept a compliment. But then he kind of melts a bit, the cranky aura sloughing off of him in a wave, and he kind of pulls his head down into his shoulders, lowers his chin, and shrugs. “Thanks.”

I drink in silence. I keep having to swallow down a bunch of explanations and excuses and elaborations. They try to come out of me, crawling up my throat. I need him to get it, you know? I need him to understand. But I'm not sure what else I can say that gives him anything new, that isn't just me rattling off my mouth to make myself feel better by filling a shitty silence. If I'm honest, I've laid it all out. Anything I say is for me. Not him.

So I drink and I watch him. His cuffs are wet from making snowballs, and his hair is damp from my ill-considered assault. His eyes are lowered, and I laser focus in on his long, full eyelashes. It's like he's got fucking mascara on. When he blinks, they fan out like butterfly wings. It's mesmerizing. 

He looks up at me.

“I hate the thought of you thinking I'm some kid.”

A laugh bubbles out of me. I try to keep it clamped down, but it escapes and he looks affronted. “Dude,” I say. “That's like… yeah. No. That's not happening. Like, at all. I don't think of you as, like… I mean…” Fuck, god. Words are hard. 

He shakes his head at my bullshit. Which, like, fair. “I think I have dreams about you, sometimes,” he says.

I nod. Slowly. I wonder how much I should say. If I'm going to open the door to something I can't go back on, here. “Me, too. I don't know. The real vivid ones, I don't exactly remember. I'm left with impressions and images and feelings…” I run my fingers along Sweet Bro’s comically protruding steak mouth. I think of Rose in the hotel room. I think of Old Lady English. _Do you believe in past lives?_

“That's why this is so frustrating, don't you get it?” Karkat says. “Like, I get it! I fucking get it! You're a creepy eccentric old dude who picked up a real young hooker on a bender and that's a whole fucking thing! There's a narrative to it and it writes itself and it's skeevy and wrong and fucked up!”

“Ouch. Say what you really feel, Karkat, fuck.”

“But that's not even the way I feel! That's the entire thing! You're Dave Strider, famous dickweed, and you know what? I hate that guy! But you're not _just_ that, and that's what makes all this so…”

Fuck it. 

I'm going in. 

“Rose sees the future,” I say.

“Fucking what?” he replies.

“I mean. Mostly the future. Some present, some past. Sometimes it's not even that exactly. Sometimes it's more a feeling, a sense.”

“Wow, congratulations! This is your rankest mouth shit to date.”

“Come on. Is it so hard to believe? With all the rest of it? Alien empress. Snow in Beverly Hills. And you and me and her. Where does it become so unbelievable, you know? Where's the cut off point?”

He lapses into silence, gazing at me warily from under knitted brows.

“She said some shit when I met her that night. And it kinda… Propped up some feelings I've had for a long time. Like, maybe my entire life.” I suck in a deep breath. “I just -- sometimes I just have this existential fucking feeling. And maybe it's one that everyone has, maybe I'm not special at all, but this feeling is like. Ever run a photocopy so many times it starts being crazy obvious that it's a copy? And you're getting the noise and the hair that was stuck to the copier and that one smudged fingerprint just keeps getting more obvious every time?”

“I've never made a photocopy.”

“Wow, okay. Fuck you, then, I guess, because that was a fucking flawless metaphor.” I sigh, long and labored, and he just watches me. I shake my head. “What if I'm the copy, I guess. What if everything is the copy. What if you're the copy, too! All of us, just the backup versions, stored away somewhere. And maybe, in the original papers all stapled together like they should be, being like, circulated and relevant and important, your page and my page and Rose’s page… they were all together.”

He doesn't say anything. Just keeps watching. And I shrug one shoulder, self conscious and hyper aware of him sipping on spicy hot chocolate and weighing my crazy ass theory. “It's a thought. I don't know.”

Silence goes on for a while. His brow is furrowed and he gazes, cross-eyed, into his drink. I want to press him. I don’t.

Finally, he sets his cup down. It echoes emptily.

“You can't be so fucking standoffish,” he snaps into the quiet. “We're just friends until I'm eighteen? Fine. I -- fine. But I'm through with the way you've been acting! I'm not a toxic miasma! I'm not going to turn you into a pedophile if you're in the same room with me with my sexy baby spores! I miss talking. I miss movies. I miss not feeling so alone in this huge ridiculous house!”

I snort. “Well, that's reasonable.”

“Rose doesn't answer my texts. I don't have anyone, Dave. I don't have anyone else. Just you, you and me, at the end of the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy davekat day, and happy birthday to my wife :)


End file.
